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Labour History Calendar

Showing all records in English only.

1 1 1804 Haiti The revolution, sparked by a slave revolt in April 1791, culminated in the proclamation of an independent republic, freed from French dominance and slavery is abolished.
1 1 1941 France The Nazi occupier extends the working day by half an hour without raising wages. The CUSA, underground unions, use discontent to engage mineworkers in direct action.
1 1 1948 Italy The new Constitution of the Republic affirms that "Italy is a democratic republic, founded on work".
1 1 1966 United States of America From 8:02 a.m., a public transport strike spread across New York. After 12 days, the strikers will get a 15% wage increase and other benefits.
1 1 1952 Canada Old Age Security, the country's first universal pension plan, comes into effect for Canadians at 70 years of age. The Canada Pension Plan, based on employment contributions, follows in 1966.
1 1 1994 North America North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) takes effect, despite objections by US, Mexican and Canadian unions.
1 1 1895 New Zealand New Zealand's Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration Act came into force
2 1 1980 United Kingdom Steelworkers begin their first national strike over pay in 50 years calling for a 20% rise.
2 1 1941 France The miners of Nord Pas-de-Calais begIn a series of 30-minute flash strikes until the arrest of 200 workers by the German occupation forces.
2 1 1920 United States of America Thousands of US labor activists are arrested in the 'Palmer Raids' during the first Red Scare.
2 1 1879 Australia Sacked Austrialian seamen return to work after a six week strike, with the promise of re-employment over the next two years.
3 1 1932 Honduras Martial law is declaredin Honduras against a revolt by sacked United Fruit Company workers
3 1 1974 Australia Forty four Victoria Street squatters, including BLF activist Joe Owens, are arrested as property developers try to clear the area for the construction of three skyscrapers.
3 1 1917 United States of America Trial of labour organizer Tom Mooney begins in San Francisco for Preparedness Day bombing. He was framed & serves 22 years.
3 1 1910 United Kingdom Miners strike for the 8 hour working day.
3 1 1894 Italy The government declared a state of siege and sent 40,000 troops to Sicily to crush a powerful movement of agricultural workers who were fighting for better wages & land redistribution, killing dozens and jailing 1000.
3 1 1813 France A government decree sets the minimum age for miners at 10.
3 1 1954 Africa 37,000 miners in British Southern Africa start what will become a 58 day for wage equality with their 'European' co-workers.
3 1 1960 Belgium During a meeting, Andr� Renard, leader of the FGTB, publicly condemns the demand of the demonstrators who shout: "Marche sur Bruxelles!" Worse still, he puts forward claims capable of dividing the Flemish and Walloon workers.
3 1 1975 France The law on dismissals for economic reasons requires the employer to consult the employee representatives beforehand.
4 1 1959 Senegal 3-day general strike in the public service. In retaliation, the government dismissed all 3,000 workers who participated.
4 1 1966 France Feyzin refinery disaster, near Lyon: the explosion killed 18 people, including 11 firefighters, and around 100 injured.
4 1 1966 United States of America Transport Workers Union of America leader Mike Quill arrested for violating an anti-strike court injunction in 4-day old 35000-member strike.
4 1 1913 Ireland The funeral of 16 year old Alicia Brady, killed by a scab's bullet during the Dublin Lockout, takes place. Mourners include Jim Larkin & James Connolly.
4 1 1965 United States of America Start of victorious 28-day strike by 8000 New York City social workers over better conditions for welfare recipients.
4 1 1905 Russia Strike in St Petersburg's Putilov works spreads. Becomes a general strike within 3 days and helped begin the 1905 Russian Revolution.
4 1 1768 United Kingdom The army was sent into Spitalfields to quell protests by weavers.
4 1 1917 Guyana A 10 day strike of wharf workers started against price rises. The dockers won an increase in wages and a shorter working week, and sparked a national strike wave.
4 1 1961 Denmark End of the barbers' assistants strike in Copenhagen. Lasting 33 years, this is apparently the longest strike ever.
5 1 1970 France A group of mercenaries headed to Sochaux to begin work at a Peugeot factory in order to infiltrate and break the union. Peugeot initially hired 120 mostly army veterans including convicted murderers and other criminals.
5 1 1944 France The CGT cheered the numerous strikes in recent months and the "willingness of the workers to overcome the current difficulties and despite the repression, the occupation and the terror to wrest their legitimate demands with a fierce struggle".
5 1 1987 France 90 SNCF depots out of 94 still on strike and traffic totally paralyzed. This will last until January 9. According to the data, 90% of rolling staff and 70% of office workers participated in the strike.
6 1 1916 United States of America 8,000 workers strike the Youngstown steel mills. The next day, they are joined by their families. The guards fired bullets and tear gas canisters at the crowd. 3 strikers die and 25 are injured.
6 1 1961 Belgium A mass demonstration in Li�ge ends with clashes with the police in the station area. The gendarmes wound two workers who succumb in the following days.
6 1 2014 France Workers at Goodyear plant in Amiens took 2 bosses hostage demanding better severance pay. They occupied the plant and kept their bosses inside until the company agreed to triple the proposed redundancy pay.
7 1 1920 United States of America Five elected members of the New York state assembly belonging to the Socialist Party are refused their seats.
7 1 1913 Peru A strike for the 8-hour day began after workers rejected proposals from employers. In El Callao, there was a total stoppage of industry as gasworkers, mill workers, typographers, bakers and other unions came out on strike.
7 1 1892 United States of America 100 dead and 150 injured in the explosion at No. 11 mine near Krebs, Oklahoma, when an untrained new hire handles dynamite.
7 1 1939 United States of America Tom Mooney of the IWW, after 22 years in prison, is found not guilty of murder.
7 1 1961 Belgium The general strike is declining. Andr� Renard, leader of the FGTB, defies the workers, believing that it is "an economic strike which puts pressure on capitalism and the state".
7 1 1971 Poland New revolt at the Gdansk and Gdynia shipyards for the release of the 200 workers arrested during the days of December. Walkouts and sit-down strikes will continue until January 26.
8 1 1987 Spain The Puerto Real shipyard dispute began. After 6 months workers successfully beat cuts by the Socialist Party govt.
8 1 1912 South Africa The African National Congress is founded in Bloemfontein
8 1 1938 Burma Striking oil workers march to Yangon and are joined by large numbers of workers and students resulting in the founding of the nationalist All-Burma Trade Union Congress.
8 1 1811 United States of America A slave revolt takes place on the Louisiana sugar plantations. 300 to 500 slaves march on New Orleans, burning the fields in the process. After 2 days, the military crushed the protest.
8 1 1963 Germany The Federal Republic extends paid leave to a minimum of 24 days (30 for construction workers).
8 1 2007 Canada The 21,000 members of ACTRA, the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists, break new ground for cultural workers with the first strike in their 64-year history. An agreement is reached after 17 months of bargaining.
9 1 1939 United States of America 1,700 tenant farm families are blocking the Missouri highway after being evicted from their homes so landowners do not have to share government aid with them.
9 1 1973 South Africa A strike wave begins in Durban when 2000 black brickworkers walk off the job and win a doubling of their wages
9 1 1907 Mexico The army puts down the labour rebellion in Rio Blanco. Nearly 200 textile workers are killed, 400 arrested, and 1,500 sacked.
10 1 2005 Bolivia COB calls a general strike for public ownership of Bolivia's gas industry.
10 1 2007 Guinea General strike in Guinea.
10 1 1918 Spain 200 homemakers marched through Barcelona calling textile workers out to strike against high cost of living.
10 1 1860 United States of America Collapse of a Pemberton factory in Lawrence, Massachussetts. 900 workers, mostly Irish, trapped in the rubble. More than 100 dead, more injured.
10 1 1974 Martinique A building workers strike begins and a strike committee is elected. They are demanding a 25% increase in wages and eventually win 14%.
10 1 1979 United Kingdom Wanting to limit wages, the government is causing "winter of discontent". Today, 50,000 truckers are on wildcat strike in Scotland and the north of England, with bosses conceding well above the recommended 5%.
11 1 1934 Martinique The corpse of Andr� Aliker, a worker activist responsible for the Communist newspaper, is discovered on the beach at Fonds Bourlet on a sheet of metal, his forearms tied up and held in place.
11 1 1944 Morocco Trade unionists participate in the filing of the Independence Manifesto, the start of the participation of Moroccan workers in the national movement and in the defence of their interests.
11 1 1973 South Africa Strike at tea packaging factory, TW Becket & Co. Despite police intervention and threats of dismissal, 100 out of 150 Black employees continue to strike. On January 25, they obtained the requested raise and reinstatement.
11 1 1997 Korea (South) During the great strike that will last until January 30, an ICFTU delegation participates in a rally in Chong-Myo Park in Seoul. Marcello Malentacchi (FIOM-Italy) declares: "Your struggle is ours".
11 1 1938 Burma Led by the legendary Thakin Po Hla Gyi, workers begin escalating strikes at Burmah Oil that culminated in a general strike in 1939. The workers demands included an 8-hour working day, paid overtime, medical leave and decent living quarters.
11 1 1985 Afghanistan A cheque for �10,000 was handed over to the National Union of Mineworkers from the Central Council of Afghanistan Trade Unions. CCATU praised the heroism of British miners in a letter accompanying the cheque.
11 1 1946 Haiti Haitian dictator Elie Lescot resigns after three days of spreading strike action against his government
11 1 1937 United States of America Police beat and arrest UAW members during the great sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan
11 1 1928 Russia Stalin banishes Leon Trotsky to Alma-Ata. Next year, he will be deported from the USSR altogether.
11 1 1831 UK Dozens of workers are convicted of machine-breaking during the agricultural workers' rebellion commonly known as the Swing Riots
11 1 1912 United States of America The 'Bread and Roses' strike began in Lynn Massachusetts. The strike was begun and led by mainly immigrant women.
12 1 1922 Hong Kong Seamen went on strike for higher wages. Over 30,000 walked out, and despite the government declaring the strike illegal after 52 days they won pay increases of 15-30%.
12 1 1913 Costa Rica The Confederaci�n General de Trabajadores (CGT) was formed.
12 1 2000 Bolivia The 'Water War' in Cochabamba heats up as protestors set up road blockades around the town.
13 1 1874 United States of America Mounted police from the NYPD violently attack a demonstration of unemployed workers in Tompkins Square Park.
13 1 1920 Germany Over 100,000 workers demonstrated outside the Reichstag to protest the Social Democrats weakening the workers' councils. They stormed the building but then police fired into the crowd killing 42 and wounding 105.
13 1 191 France 10,000 miners start a week of strike action in the Alsace coal mines against wage cuts and the mark-franc exchange rate. The latter is postponed.
13 1 1982 France Under pressure from trade unions the Socialist government introduces the 39-hour week and a fifth week of paid leave.
14 1 1918 Austria Strike in Wiener Neustadt against lowering of flour rations. The movement very quickly affects all the industrial territories of the Empire. Almost a million workers and employees stop work.
14 1 1961 Belgium The general strike ends. The metal workers in Liege, in Hainaut and the gas companies resist the recovery and is often done to the song of the International. The sanctioned comrades are assiduously defended.
14 1 1974 Martinique Demonstrations in Fort-de-France with cries of �Down with the colonialist government� bringing together high school students, CET students and strikers from France-Antilles who have been fighting for more than 2 months against their predatory boss, Her
14 1 2003 United States of America General Electric decides to transfer $ 400 / year from the employer's share of health insurance contributions to each employee. 14,000 of them go on strike for 2 days in protest.
14 1 1929 Australia 600 union dock workers rushed the scab-filled Mareeba steamship in Port Adelaide. Scabs and police fought the workers, who retaliated with stones, injuring 30 scabs. One scab began shooting into the crowd but was not arrested.
14 1 2011 Tunisia President Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after street protests led by the UGTT brought down his government at the start of the Arab spring.
14 1 1893 United Kingdom Foundation of the Independent Labour Party following the Manningham Mills strike in Bradford.
15 1 1889 Canada Innkeeper Joe Beef of Montr�al dies, a legendary friend to the outcast poor and labouring classes. More than 50 unions march in his funeral procession.
15 1 1919 Peru After strikes starting in Lima's textile factories workers won the right to an 8 hour day, despite the government arresting and torturing strike leaders.
15 1 1831 United Kingdom Farm labourer Henry Cooke was executed for his part in the Captain Swing riots the previous year. During a protest he punched an aristocrat who assaulted a worker, which earned him the death penalty.
15 1 1919 Germany Summary execution for their role in the Berlin uprising of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxembourg, leading theorist of German communism.
15 1 1946 Japan Birth of the post-war labour movement. 1,500 union members attend the inaugural ceremony at the Kawasaki canteen of the new union chaired by Aoki Fujio.
15 1 1976 Spain Employees of the national railroad company, Renfe, strike, closing many depots across the country. Wages, fewer hours and the right to organize are the issues. The government calls out the military.
15 1 1929 United States of America Birth of civil rights activist and labor movement supporter Martin Luther King, Jr
16 1 1979 Iran The Shah of Iran flees into exile after months of protests which included strikes by unions and leftwing groups.
16 1 1997 India Trade union leader, Dutta Samant was assassinated. He had led 300,000 mill workers in a year-long strike in 1982 in Mumbai.
16 1 1905 Russia 12,000 workers on the Poutilov construction site strike in solidarity with two workers dismissed for their membership if the "legal" association of Zoubatov.
16 1 1919 Argentina End of the general strike underway in Buenos Aires since January 7. Armed repression resulted in the death of more than 200 workers.
16 1 1957 Senegal Creation of the General Union of Black African Workers (UGTAN), headquartered in Dakar. After one year, it brings together 80 to 90% of union members in AOF, 150,000 in total.
16 1 1997 Albania Several months of civil unrest began when hundreds of thousands of workers lost savings and housing during the crash of the last of the pyramid investment funds. They demand reimbursement and overthrow the government.
17 1 1974 Martinique Farm workers from Basse-Pointe, Macoumba and Lorrain go on strike. They demand the abolition of the SMAG (minimum guaranteed wage in agriculture) lower than the SMIC and a minimum of 35.46F for 8 hours of work.
17 1 1917 France To channel discontent in factories working for national defence, the government adopted the "Albert Thomas" decree authorizing the election of one delegate per group of 50 workers in the workshops.
17 1 1922 China Huang Ai and Pang Renquan were beheaded for their role in organizing a mill workers strike.
17 1 1915 United States of America The song 'Solidarity Forever' by Ralph Chaplin is first sung, on a hunger march through Chicago organised by Lucy Parsons.
18 1 1961 United Kingdom The footballers union wins the abolition of the maximum wage after a unamious strike vote.
18 1 2013 China 1000 migrant factory workers in Shanghai stopped work and held 18 bosses hostage in protest at a new disciplinary policy, which included a two-minute limit on the bathroom breaks. The company quickly withdrew the policy.
18 1 1929 Australia 800 women - mostly the wives of striking Port Adelaide workers - began a march in support of their husbands. The women, many with their children marched to the port to confront scabs, and fought back when attacked by police.
18 1 1982 India 300,000 textile workers in 60 mills across Mumbai went on strike for wage and bonus increases. Remaining out for 16 months, the workers were eventually defeated in what became a key event in the Indian workers' movement.
18 1 1893 Canada In the harbour at Nanaimo, British Columbia, Coast Seamen's Union organizers board the SS Bawnmore, whose crew had not been paid in months. A high-profile kidnapping trial follows, with the provincial premier acting as Crown Prosecutor.
18 1 1943 France Emilienne Mopty-Wantiez, mine strike leader and wife of a miner, escaped prison twice, executed with an ax in Cologne prison after a third arrest and death sentence by the Wehrmatcht court in Arras.
18 1 1984 Uruguay The PIT holds the first general strike against the Uruguayan military government
18 1 1913 Ireland Jim Larkin addresses a crowd of Dublin workers in Croydon Park, telling them to go back to work on the best available terms.
19 1 1969 Czech Republic Death of Jan Palach, who set himself on fire in protest against the USSR's invasion of Czechoslovakia.
19 1 1973 Canada Annie Buller, a veteran Communist organizer, dies in Toronto at 78 years of age after a lifetime of activism in support of labour and political causes.
19 1 1915 United States of America 20 strikers in Roosevelt, New Jersey, are killed when security guards open fire at an agricultural chemicals factory. They had stopped a train to look for scabs.
19 1 1918 Austria 112,000 employees walk out in the city of Vienna alone to protest a deterioration in the food situation.
19 1 1920 United States of America In Hawaii 3,000 members of the Philippine Federation of Labour strike at Ohao plantations. Joined later by members of the Japanese Federation of Labour, their number rose to 8,300.
19 1 1925 Tunisia A strike at the Hammam-Lif cement plant spreads to the 3rd day, at the quarry and lime factory of Borj C�dria 7 kms away. Violent repression, prosecution of M'hamed Ali and comrades, then dissolution of the CGTT.
19 1 1973 United States of America In Yuba City, California, a labour contractor, Juan V. Corona, was found guilty of the murder of 25 migrant farm workers between 1970 and 1971.
19 1 2000 United States of America Charleston, SC. 600 police officers disperse a demonstration of dockers whose collective agreement is called into question. 5 of them will be arrested on pretexts; the start of the campaign for the liberation of the Charleston 5.
19 1 1982 India Unions organize a 1-day general strike of great significance in the history of the labour movement. For the first time in independent India, the peasantry and the rural-urban workers came together in a joint action.
20 1 1793 France The Republican calendar of Fabre d��glantine establishes a Labour Day on the 3rd day of the Sansculottides. This workers' day was instituted on the 1st pluvi�se (January 20) by Saint-Just, and was celebrated for a few years.
20 1 1934 Germany The Nazis abolish collective bargaining and union elections. According to the law "the head of the company decides for the employees and workers in any matter concerning the company [...] The workers owe their loyalty to him".
20 1 1914 Canada Joseph Mairs, 21, a coal miner from Ladysmith, British Columbia, dies in prison after failing to receive adequate medical treatment. He is one of more than 200 strikers arrested in a long struggle for recognition of the United Mine Workers of America
20 1 1950 Canada Barred windows and locked doors prevent workers from escaping a fire in a small basement garment factory in downtown Toronto. Of the eleven people in the shop, six die in the blaze, including the owner and his son, and three more in hospital.
20 1 1872 Philippines Soldiers and workers in the Spanish garrison at Cavite rise up, hoping to provoke a national rebellion against the Spanish.
21 1 1946 USA 750,000 steelworkers walk off the job, join Great Strike Wave
21 1 1969 Malta Dockers struck over an attempt to change their longstanding customary entitlements including the right to pass jobs on to their sons.
21 1 1961 Belgium After 6 weeks, the last strikers, the 120,000 metallurgists from the Li�ge and Charleroi basins, return to work with a feeling of failure.
21 1 1972 Namibia Striking Ovambo workers in South African occupied Namibia win the abolition of the contract labour system
22 1 1905 Russia Bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg as the Tsar's troops shoot down hundreds of protesting workers.
22 1 1969 United States of America Black workers at the Eldon Chrysler plant in Detroit march on the autoworkers' union with a list of grievances. The workers had formed ELRUM - the Eldon Revolutionary Union Movement - and they called a strike the next day.
22 1 1971 Poland New strikes in Szczecin. General strike throughout the city. The workers' council of the shipyards demands the immediate arrival of Gierek. Slogan: salary increase by 30%.
22 1 1917 Russia Strike of 50,000 workers to commemorate the "Bloody Sunday" of 1905.
23 1 1917 France Le Havre. A women's strike to increase wages at the Schneider factory spread to other factories and led to a wage agreement in the metals sector, signed on the 27th.
23 1 1971 Poland Strikes break out in the towns near Szczecin: Pila, Stargard, Szcezcinski and Swinoujscie. Jaroszewicz circular to companies on the "relaxation of labour discipline" and "the spirit of tolerance towards workers".
23 1 1918 Canada In wartime Nova Scotia, 88 men are killed in an explosion in a coal mine at Stellarton. The casualties are later listed on a memorial. Another nearby monument lists the 69 local soldiers killed during the four years of the First World War.
23 1 1982 South Africa Formula1 Grand Prix drivers went on strike and barricaded themselves in doors in protest against new "super licence" conditions. They were fined but they won and the new licences were withdrawn.
23 1 1913 United States of America Joe Hill's song 'Mr. Block', extolling the virtues of industrial unionism, is first published in the IWW's newpaper.
24 1 1986 United Kingdom Print workers at Rupert Murdoch's News International went on strike against the new, open shop, no-strike plant at Wapping in London. They were all sacked and replaced by scabs and after a year they declared their strike lost.
24 1 1919 Ireland Staff barricaded themselves inside the Monaghan Lunatic Asylum and declared a Soviet. They also made demands on pay and working hours, including equal pay for women. They won their demands in February.
24 1 1979 Canada The first bank strike in Canadian history begins when workers picket branches of La Banque d'�pargne de la cit� et du district de Montr�al.
24 1 1925 Senegal Beginning of a 4-day strike in the Dakar-Niger Railways for a wage increase benefiting both African and European workers.
24 1 1977 Spain Five trade union activists, members of the CCOO, are murdered by Francoists. Four others were critically wounded. The Atocha Massacre accelerated the resurgence of the Spanish labour movement. 500,000 workers struck in protest.
24 1 2009 Canada Le Journal de Montréal declares a lockout in an attempt to gigify the workers' collective agreement. The dispute lasts for 764 days.
24 1 1911 Japan Influential Japanese anarchist Shusui Kotoku is hanged along with ten others after conviction on circumstantial evidence
25 1 2011 Egypt Opposition groups turn 'National Police Day' into a massive day of protest against President Mubarak
25 1 1988 Canada Members of the United Nurses of Alberta defy a ban on strike action and begin a province-wide strike against cutbacks in health care. They win their case, and a better contract follows two years later.
26 1 1983 Canada Instructors at Quebec CEGEPs walk out, beginning a Common Front strike against rollbacks in collective agreements introduced by the Parti Qu�b�cois. Primary and high school teachers and other public sector workers join the protest.
26 1 1981 Canada Some 16,000 Ontario hospital workers, members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, take part in an illegal strike. CUPE President Grace Hartman later goes to jail for supporting her members.
27 1 1891 Iceland VR (the Store and Office Workers' Union) is founded.
27 1 1918 Finland Workers took over Helsinki. The new republic instituted workers� control of production, abolished the old mode of land distribution and emancipated domestic servants and farmhands.
27 1 1872 Canada A public meeting at the Mechanics' Institute in Hamilton, Ontario adopts resolutions to reduce the normal six-day working week from 60 to 54 hours. When the Nine Hour League is announced, support grows in a dozen centres, from Sarnia to Montr�al.
27 1 1850 United States of America Samuel Gompers, founder of the American Federation of Labor, is born.
28 1 1935 Saint Kitts and Nevis Cane cutters refused to start reaping the new sugar cane crop. Soon a general strike of sugar workers developed, during which British troops killed two strikers and wounded eight.
28 1 1946 Chile Six workers demonstrating against rising prices were murdered and many more seriously injured by police in Bulnes Square, Santiago.
28 1 1918 Germany Hundreds of thousands of workers went on general strike against war in Berlin, and across the country in the next few days 4 million took to the streets.
29 1 1980 Canada Jean-Claude Parrot, president of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, begins a three-month jail sentence for defying a back-to-work law that ended a legal strike by postal workers in 1978.
29 1 1901 France Beginning of the first metro strike in Paris which will last until the 31st. Staff are demanding an improvement in their agreement in order to share the success of this new means of public transport.
29 1 1834 United States of America Federal troops are used to break a strike for the first time in America, on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal
29 1 1946 Canada Supreme Court Justice Ivan C. Rand releases his report on the Ford strike and imposes the Rand Formula to promote union security.
30 1 1990 Poland The United Workers' Party dissolves itself. Jaruzelski, deprived of all power, resigns.
30 1 1919 United Kingdom 40,000 workers went on strike in the engineering and shipbuilding industries in Glasgow�s #Clydeside to fight for the 40-hour working week. Thousands of electricity workers and miners also struck in sympathy.
30 1 1919 Global Foundation of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
30 1 1893 Italy Pietro Tresso, one of the founders of Italian Trotskyism, born. Later executed by Stalinists in the French Resistance
31 1 1912 Australia A general strike begins in Brisbane in support of thousands of tramworkers sacked for wearing union badges.
31 1 1938 United States of America 12,000 pecan shellers, most of them Hispanic women, strike for higher wages and civil rights in San Antonio, Texas.
31 1 1913 Ireland Building labourers return to work after the Dublin lock-out, signing a pledge to remain outside the ITGWU.
31 1 1919 United States of America The Collar Laundry Union was formed in New York, the first women's union in US history, led by Kate Mullany. Over the next few years the women increase their wages from $2 to $14 a week.
31 1 1919 United Kingdom Striking workers fought police in the centre of Glasgow. The Secretary of State for Scotland declared it a "Bolshevist uprising" .
31 1 1919 United Kingdom Striking workers fought police in the centre of Glasgow. The Secretary of State for Scotland declared it a "Bolshevist uprising".
31 1 1907 Canada More than 400 women telephone operators in Toronto walk out when Bell Telephone attempts to introduce longer hours and lower pay.
31 1 1919 United Kingdom The Battle of George Square starts when police used baton charges against more than 60,000 men, women and children who had gathered to demand a 40-hour working week
1 2 1864 United States of America The Collar Laundry Union was formed in New York, the first women's union in US history, led by Kate Mullany. Over the next few years the women increase their wages from $2 to $14 a week.
1 2 1947 Japan On this date, the rival confederations Sanbetsu and Sodomei announced a national strike. Many unaffiliated unions join in over wage demands and the resignation of the government.
1 2 2010 Finland More than 1,000 stevedores go on strike without warning in the country's ports.
1 2 2011 Tunisia Following the Tunisian revolution, Habib Guiza takes over the heritage of the Tunisian General Confederation of Labour, thus putting an end to the monopoly of the UGTT
2 2 2015 Bermuda Police and strikers clash during the racially-charged Belco strike.
2 2 1917 United States of America 300 newspaper boys organize to challenge a cut in their wages by a newspaper, the Minneapolis Tribune.
2 2 1912 Australia "Baton Friday" as police attack striking workers in Brisbane
3 2 1998 Sri Lanka 600,000 Sri Lankan plantation workers begin a wage strike bringing the economy to a halt.
3 2 1939 Canada The first group of Canadian veterans of the Spanish Civil War disembark at Halifax. Of the almost 1,700 Canadians who fought fascism in Spain, more than 400 were killed. Many of the volunteers were union activists and others radicalized in the 1930s.
4 2 1924 United States of America Les membres de l'IWW patrouillent dans les rues de Greenville, dans le Maine, apr�s que le KKK ait menac� les organisateurs de l'IWW: �Nous allons rester, et si le Klan veut commencer quelque chose, les IWW vont le terminer�.
4 2 1869 United States of America IWW and SPUSA leader Big Bill Haywood is born in Salt Lake City, Utah.
4 2 1919 United States of America The General Strike Committee meets in Seattle, and makes preparations for an all-out labour stoppage
4 2 1924 United States of America IWW members took on the Ku Klux Klan, patrolling the streets of Greenville, Maine, after the KKK tried to threaten IWW union organisers: �We are going to stick, and if the Klan wants to start something, the IWW are going to finish it�
4 2 1905 Japan Wage tensions amid a wealth display by employers turn into an insurrectional strike lasting 3 days in the copper mines of Ashio, located a hundred kilometers north of Tokyo.
4 2 1970 France An explosion kills 16 people in a Fouqui�res-lez-Lens mine belonging to the Compagnie des mines de Courri�res, in Pas-de-Calais.
4 2 1979 Peru When a court ruled in favor of the workers, victims of a lockout, security agents and the police dispersed the crowd gathered in front of the textile factory, killing 8 people and injuring several.
4 2 2016 Greece A 24-hour general strike is called by the federations of public / private unions massively mobilizes workers, peasants, artisans and all the poorest strata to protest against the drastic austerity policy of the government.
5 2 1919 Spain 140 workers in the CNT union walked out on strike against the sacking of 8 workers in a Barcelona hydroelectric plant. It grew to a general strike shutting 70% of firms until bosses caved and even introduced 1st 8-hour day laws.
5 2 1981 United Kingdom 240 mostly women workers at the Lee Jeans factory in Greenock Scotland occupied it upon learning that it was due to be closed. They held out 7 months until management caved and agreed to a buyout which kept their jobs.
5 2 1982 United Kingdom Negotiations between union and management began after the mostly female workforce of the Plessey capacitor plant in Bathgate, Scotland, began to occupy the factory against its closure.
5 2 1973 South Africa 3,000 cleaners strike in the centre of Durban, joined the next day by 16,000 employees from other Durban departments. On day, 30,000 are participating.
5 2 1908 Canada Beginning of the strike by some forty snow plow operators employed by the City of Montreal. The city is buried in snow.
5 2 1913 United States of America 17-year-old Ida Braiman is shot dead by a contractor during the garment workers' strike in Rochester, NY.
5 2 2009 Martinique Unions come together in the 5th February Collective to launch a multi-industry strike against increasing living costs
6 2 1919 United States of America A total of 60,000 of Seattle's population of 315,000 join the general strike on its first day
6 2 1974 United Kingdom With the prospect of a UK-wide coalminers strike Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath called a snap election under the slogan "Who governs Britain?" - meaning the government, or the unions? He lost, and miners won 35% pay increase.
6 2 2012 Canada Eleven farmworkers, including nine migrant workers from Peru, are killed in a highway crash at Hampstead, Ontario. The tragedy highlights unsafe conditions in the sector and the exploitation of seasonal workers.
7 2 1974 Martinique The employees of SPEDEM, now EDF-Martinique, went on indefinite strike. This conflict has been brewing since 28/12/1973, Prefect Orsetti having postponed negotiations until the end of January.
7 2 1934 France Strike by the CGT and CGTU following a violent demonstration of the extreme right, the day before. Socialists and Communists parades in Paris.
7 2 2006 France 400,000 people in 187 cities protested against the new CPE law which gave bosses right to fire 18-26 year-old workers with neither notice nor reason. Strikes, riots, occupations and blockades forced govt to drop it.
8 2 1919 United States of America Workers in Butte, Montana responded to a dollar per day wage cut by launching a general strike. To prevent disunity, workers formed a Workers and Soldiers Council to conduct the strike.
8 2 1938 Russia Veteran metalworker Olga Taratuta was executed in the USSR for organising rail workers. She had been arrested and imprisoned many times by the regime and by the Tsar.
8 2 1962 France The Charonne massacre took place in Paris, when nine members of the CGT trade union were killed by the police while demonstrating against the OAS French paramilitaries in Algeria.
8 2 1900 Martinique A rollining strike started 2 days earlier to obtain better wages. At 17.15, Lieutenant Kahn started a shootout which did not end the strike, but which left 10 dead and 12 seriously injured.
9 2 2011 Egypt Strikes begin to spread across Egypt, as new independent unions emerge during the anti-Mubarak movement
9 2 1869 Canada Birth of James Bryson McLachlan, at Ecclefechan, Scotland. As a union leader in Canada he becomes the champion of the Nova Scotia coal miners and a leading spokesman for the cause of labour radicalism.
9 2 1932 Germany The last issue of �Syndikalist�, newspaper of the Dresden FAUD, the anarcho-syndicalist Free Workers Union of Germany, was published before its suppression by the Nazis.
10 2 1972 UK 30,000 Birmingham engineers go on strike in solidarity with striking miners. Thousands of them march to Saltley Gate coke depot, overpowering police to shut the gates.
10 2 1928 Canada At the Hollinger Consolidated Gold Mine at Timmins, Ontario, the largest in North America, 39 miners are killed when a fire spreads carbon monoxide through the workings. There is no rescue plan in place and it takes five days to put out the fire.
10 2 1905 France As a cobblers 'strike at the Monteux factory ends, 600 people listen to Auguste Delal�, secretary of the Parisian CGT cobblers' union at the Limoges LaboUr Exchange.
10 2 1913 France Strike at Renault against timing and payment for missing parts and broken tools, the creation of a workers' committee. In retaliation, 436 strikers were dismissed, the workshops closed.
10 2 1927 Vietnam Nguyen Thai Hoc leads the Yen-bai garrison uprising during the night. Attacks were perpetrated in Hanoi and strikes broke out in the cotton and rubber plantations. The movement is quickly repressed by the administration
10 2 1979 Iran As the general strike paralyzes the country an insurgency breaks out and in a few hours the revolution spreads throughout Tehran, with participation from Islamists, the left and workers.
11 2 1963 Canada At Reesor Siding, near Kapuskasing, Ontario, eleven union members are shot, three fatally, in a confrontation over pulpwood supplies for a strikebound mill. Three of the attackers are later fined for possessing dangerous firearms.
11 2 1908 Canada Eight workers are killed in an explosion at the Standard Explosive Company works on �le Perrot, near Montreal.
11 2 1987 United Kingdom Mark Ashton, leading member of Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, died aged just 26. LGSM raised huge amounts of money for Welsh miners during the strike of 1984-5 and brought together the LGBT & workers movements.
11 2 2011 Egypt After three days of spreading strikes, President Hosni Mubarak is finally forced to resign
11 2 1937 United States of America The 6 week-long sit-down strike at General Motors in Flint Michigan ends as GM agrees to recognize the UAW.
11 2 1959 Ireland The Irish Congress of Trade Unions is founded as two rival union centres dissolve themselves.
11 2 1911 France 150,000 people accompany trade unionist Albert Aernoult's body to P�re-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. A public subscription call from l�Humanit�made made it possible to repatriate the body of the activist who died of abuse at the Bat d�Af on 2/7/1909.
11 2 1974 Martinique Faced with the scale of social movements and the growing strike of agricultural workers, especially in the North, the CGTM, FO and CFDT launch an indefinite general strike.
12 2 1968 United States of America Sanitation workers in Memphis begin a strike for recognition. During this strike Martin Luther King Jr is murdered
12 2 1968 United States of America The Memphis sanitation strike by African-American workers began in protest against mistreatment, discrimination, dangerous working conditions, and the recent deaths of two workers. They held out until April and won.
12 2 1974 Martinique A large demonstration of more than 5,000 workers from all sectors roamed the streets of Fort-de-France to demand wage increases and castigating the bosses and the government.
13 2 1913 United States of America 82-year-old labour activist Mother Jones was arrested in West Virginia for supporting a coal miners strike. Convicted in a military court she was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Pardoned after serving 85 days.
13 2 1998 Sri Lanka After 10 days on strike 600,000 plantation workers win a wage increase and return to work.
13 2 1974 Martinique Groups of strikers force stores to respect the strike, they clash with the police. Many strikers are wounded. wounded.
14 2 1974 Martinique The Chalvet massacre. An ambush was set against the strikers grouped together at the Fond Br�l� dwelling, the gendarmes fired live ammunition and launched tear gas from a helicopter. One dead and several injured.
14 2 1974 Martinique Despite calls by political parties and unions which fear a resumption of excesses, the number of strikers determined to continue the movement is so great that, ultimately, the continuation of the strike is announced.
14 2 1818 United States of America Frederick Douglass is born into slavery in Maryland. He will go on to become a titanic figure in the struggle against slavery, and in favour of universal suffrage and women's rights.
14 2 1936 United States of America Goodyear workers in Ohio strike. They defy union orders to leave the plant & resist 150 sheriff's deputies. Threatening a general strike if a vigilante army was used, they won after a month.
14 2 1956 Algeria The Union of Algerian Workers Union (USTA) is founded by the Algerian National Movement.
14 2 1949 Canada In defiance of provincial laws, asbestos workers in Qu�bec begin a four-month strike for better wages and workplace safety. With strong public support for the miners' cause, the strike becomes a forerunner of the province's Quiet Revolution.
15 2 1912 Canada Male garment workers at the Eaton�s factory in Toronto are locked out when they protest changes that deprive women workers of jobs. More than a thousand employees join the protest. Solidarity marches and public boycotts continue for several months.
15 2 1982 Canada All 84 crew on board are lost when an oil-drilling rig capsizes and sinks in a storm on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland and Labrador. The Ocean Ranger disaster is attributed to failures in structural design and inadequate safety measures.
15 2 1913 United States of America A strike of rubber workers in #Akron organised by @_IWW union grew to 3,500 strikers. Earlier that month 300 workers at Firestone walked out and were eventually joined by 20K others but police violence & repression forced them to end it.
15 2 1912 United Kingdom Women workers in a factory in Bridport staged a wildcat strike over pay and conditions. They refused arbitration and ended strike only after a London union official came down to sign them up & settle the dispute.
15 2 1974 Martinique The body of a 19-year-old young man, a mason, a striker, Georges Marie-Louise, was discovered on a beach in Basse Pointe, not far from Chalvet, probably killed by members of the repressive forces.
15 2 1974 Martinique The dispersal of a demonstration begins in front of the Union House in Fort-de-France, when the Prefecture announces its refusal to return the body of a striker. A delegation, and 2,000 demonstrators, demand and obtain the release of the body.
16 2 1924 United Kingdom 200,000 dock workers walked out on strike. The Labour Party were in power for the first time and invoked emergency powers to crush the strike. Despite this, the workers held out and won pay increases.
16 2 1921 Italy Fascists tried to break a transport workers' strike by operating the trams. But they were met with mass resistance, with one scab tram attacked by over 400 people.
16 2 1943 France Establishment of the compulsory labor service (STO) for men aged 21 to 23. More than 650,000 of them will be sent to Germany to work there. Almost 35,000 will die there.
16 2 1930 Africa Opening in Algiers by L�on Jouhaux of the 1st Congress of Confederate Unions of North Africa in the presence of 300 delegates.
17 2 1918 Russia Lenin orders the execution, deportation and imprisonment of sex workers.
17 2 1944 Canada Wartime unrest convinces the federal government to bring in an emergency order, P.C. 1003, which requires employers to recognize and bargain with unions supported by the majority of employees. This breakthrough sets a standard for postwar labour relations.
17 2 2006 UK Royal Mail workers in Belfast return to work after a successful wildcat strike against victimisation
17 2 1993 United Kingdom Over 300 workers sacked at Timex factory, Dundee after official strike over a pay freeze & redundancies.
17 2 1864 France The "Manifesto of the sixty", signed and published by sixty workers from the Seine, called for workers' representation in Parliament.
18 2 1935 United States of America Tens of thousands of New Yorkers were stranded by a wildcat strike of elevator operators in the city.
18 2 1924 France Madame Sorgue, French revolutionary & feminist died in London. A fierce advocate for the working class, she supported many strikes, including several by women workers in France against sexual harassment from male bosses
18 2 1925 Peru Maritime and railway workers in Mollendo, Peru, launched a general strike against the unjustified sacking of three workers at the British-owned Peruvian Corporation. A week later, the workers were reinstated.
18 2 2010 Ghana Sex workers in Accra, Ghana in the Commercial Workers' Union were fighting to collectively raise their prices in response to high inflation.
19 2 2017 Canada Labour leader Bob White dies at 81 years of age. He is remembered as a founder of the Canadian Auto Workers and a popular president of the Canadian Labour Congress.
19 2 1866 United States of America The first union in Mississippi was created by African-American washerwomen.
19 2 1986 United States of America The Farm Labourers Organizing Committee wins recognition at Campbell's Soup farms after years of struggle
19 2 1920 France Responding to the dismissal of a trade unionist from the Villeneuve-Saint-Georges workshop, 1,500 railway workers went on strike, the start of a movement that lasted 5 months.
19 2 2006 Mexico An explosion at the Pasta de Conchos mine in Sabinas kills 65 workers. Grupo Mexico, the mine�s owner, ends rescue efforts after 5 days even though only 2 bodies had been recovered.
20 2 1919 United States of America The Elaine massacre took place in Arkansas. After black farm workers tried to organise for better pay, hundreds of African-Americans were murdered and tortured by white racists and security forces
20 2 1919 Italy Parliament passes a law establishing the 8-hour working day in industry. Despite the wage increases obtained and the reduction in working hours, the cost of living continues to climb.
20 2 1926 France Jules Durand, trade unionist from Le Havre, dies in the insane asylum. Arrested and falsely accused of murder on 6/6/1918, his crime is to have launched a strike for wages and compensation for mechanization
20 2 1810 France The penal code regulates any association of more than twenty people and qualifies participation in a workers' coalition as an offence.
20 2 1906 France At the Mines de la Belli�re, a strike ends in failure after several days of revolt against the actions of the foreman and the head of the mines. 14 workers are dismissed with compensation and ordered to leave the region.
21 2 1919 Spain 70% of businesses in Catalonia shut as Barcelona power workers begin a city-wide strike
21 2 1848 Global Publication of the "Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, one of the most influential texts ever written.
21 2 1884 France A miners' strike began in Anzin following a change in the organization of work imposed by the Coal Company. It failed after 56 days and violent clashes with troops. 140 unionized miners are dismissed.
21 2 1946 France Reinstatement of the law on 40 hours of weekly work.
21 2 1946 Egypt General strike and demonstrations in the big cities. Several dead and a hundred wounded in Cairo, where English troops shoot at the crowd heading to Ismailia square.
21 2 1974 Martinique Banana plantation owners agree to the eight-hour working day and to pay 39.50F, (about 25% increase), but the SMAG (guaranteed minimum wage in agriculture) is maintained.
21 2 1891 Canada At Springhill, Nova Scotia an explosion takes the lives of 125 men and boys in the province's largest coal mine disaster. They leave more than 200 widows and children.
22 2 1905 Ukraine Workers at Kerner factory in Ukraine went on strike demanding better conditions. One of the workers was Nestor Makhno, who would later a revolutionary army which would defeat the White armies of generals Denikin and Wrangel.
22 2 1927 Japan The first union for Korean casual labourers in Japan was formed: the Casual Workers' Union (Jiy� R�d�sha Kumiai).
22 2 1921 Mexico The CGT is founded by left-wing workers dismayed by the 'yellow' leadership of Mexico's biggest union, CROM.
22 2 1919 India Mill owners in Ahmedabad lock out workers who refuse a 20% pay rise, sticking to their demand of 50%
22 2 1945 France Creation of works councils in establishments with more than 100 employees (and more than 50 the following year).
23 2 2004 Slovakia Police attacked unemployed workers, mostly Roma, protesting welfare cuts. Police beat & tear gassed, then tortured people with batons and electric prods but unemployed kept up struggle & won improvements.
23 2 1910 United States of America Workers at the soon to be infamous Triangle Shirtwaist factory decided to end their five month long strike. They had won higher wages and reduced hours but failed to get union recognition.
23 2 1848 France An insurrection in Paris ends the July Monarchy. After 10 days of tension, the troop opened fire, killing 50 demonstrators on Bld des Capucines. Workers and students rob the gunsmiths and set up 1500 barricades in the city.
23 2 2011 Greece Greeks stage a huge general strike in protest at IMF and EU austerity measures
24 2 1941 Netherlands Amsterdam dockers strike when Nazis begin deporting Jews to death camps by ship. Strike spreads across the city.
24 2 1944 United States of America 320 men, mostly African-Americans were killed in explosion at the Port Chicago naval base. 50 African-American servicemen who then protested against unsafe conditions were court-martialed and sentenced to 8-15 years hard labour.
24 2 1939 United States of America US Supreme Court ruled sitdown strikes illegal.
25 2 1931 Canada In Toronto more than 500 women dressmakers protest sweatshop conditions in the needle trades and begin a strike for better wages and union recognition. Large numbers of scabs and police are deployed.
25 2 1792 France Working class �sans-culottes� invaded shops in Paris forcing merchants to sell their goods at affordable prices.
25 2 1848 France The worker-mechanic Marche manages to present a petition asking for "the organization of work, the guaranteed right to work, social security for the worker and his family" which is received as "an absurdity" by the Provisional Government.
25 2 1941 Netherlands Amsterdam dockworkers initiate a general strike against against the deportation of Jews and the establishment of a ghetto. The Nazis crush it in 48 hours.
26 2 1920 Austria Creation of the Labour Chambers by the law of February 26, 1920. They operate on a regional basis, in each Austrian "Bundesland" such a Chamber is created.
26 2 1906 France In Cerb�re, the women who carry 15 to 20 kilos of oranges in baskets on their backs between two railway lines strike. They lie down on the tracks until they win better wages.
26 2 2014 Cyprus Rolling power cuts hit the country as workers protest utility privatisation plans.
26 2 2009 Greece Striking security guards, who are temporary contract workers, shut down the Acropolis in Athens.
26 2 1990 United Kingdom An evening picket of striking textile workers in Hackney, East London attacked by police, a fierce fight followed.
26 2 1979 Canada The Farmworkers Organizing Committee (FWOC) is established at a meeting in a room in the New Westminster library. Eight people are present including: Raj Chouhan, Harinder Mahil, Sarwan Sidhu, Pritam Singh, Amarit Pal Mann, Gurnam Sahota.
27 2 1881 United States of America African-American laundresses in Atlanta, Georgia, went on strike and were successful in raising wages and establishing a union.
27 2 1912 France Legislation lowers the age of the Workers 'and Peasants' Retirement, called "retirement of the dead" by the CGT, from 65 to 60 years. This funded system later fails due to post-war inflation.
27 2 1914 France Anti-war demonstration in Paris, at the call of the CGT Seine UD.
27 2 1941 Netherlands German troops and Dutch police crush The February Strike, a union protest against the deportation of Dutch Jews to death camps.
27 2 1951 New Zealand Troops are sent onto the Auckland and Wellington wharfs to attempt to break the dockers' strike
27 2 1939 United States of America Supreme Court rules that sit-down strikes violate property owners' rights and are therefore illegal.
28 2 1921 El Salvador The newly formed shoemakers' union in El Salvador ends its first ever strike after a week, with its demands met
28 2 2012 India Up to 100 million workers take part in a general strike in India, possibly the largest strike in history.
28 2 1848 France Popular demonstration by thousands of workers on Place de Gr�ve (Strike Square) in Paris to demand a ministry of labour.
28 2 1848 France In the aftermath of the Parisian revolution, the provisional government of the Second Republic issued a decree guaranteeing work to all citizens.
28 2 1812 Belgium The sudden water invasion at the Beaujonc mine (16 km from Li�ge) traps 127 miners in a confined space. For five days and five nights, they worked to get by but only 70 of them returned to the surface
28 2 1956 France A third week of annual paid vacation is established for all employees.
29 2 1956 Canada In Sudbury, Ontario, the great African-American singer and activist Paul Robeson performs at the Mine Mill union hall. It is his last concert in Canada, as the Canadian government soon afterwards blocks his return for an extensive concert tour.
29 2 1848 France The streets and squares of central Paris are occupied daily by workers electing their delegates or going in procession to the provisional government to ensure that their victory is not once again stolen.
1 3 1921 Russia 16,000 people met in Kronstadt, Russia, which passed a 15-point resolution condemning the new Bolshevik dictatorship and calling for all power to the soviets and freedom of press and assembly for workers and peasants.
1 3 1912 United Kingdom Over 1 million British coal miners went on strike for a nationwide minimum wage for coal miners. 37 days into the strike the government caved and passed the Coal Mines Act, establishing a minimum wage for the first time.
1 3 1382 France Revolt of the Maillotins. In Paris, artisans, workers, peasants ransack and kill; at the town hall and at the Arsenal they seized lead mallets and attacked tax collectors.
1 3 1912 UK The Miners Federation of Great Britain commences the first national coalminers' strike, for a minimum wage.
1 3 1923 Senegal Creation of a Seafarers' Association in Dakar which will quickly become the Federation of Maritime Trade Unions affiliated to the CGT. "It was the first time that an Indigenous labour organization came out."
2 3 1986 Canada Workers in Newfoundland and Labrador's Transport and Public Works departments begin an illegal strike in response to a law that requires public sector unions to designate 49 per cent of their members as essential before taking strike action.
2 3 1791 France Allarde�s decree abolished corporations, introducing a radical change in the economy and the organization of work.
2 3 1848 France Decree limiting working hours to ten hours in Paris and eleven hours in the provinces. Abolition of labour contractors (recruitment of workers by intermediaries).
2 3 1921 Russia Conference marking the start of the non-violent revolt in Kronstadt (Crimea) and the Russian utimatum. The revolt will be crushed on April 19 by the Red Army under the command of Trotsky.
2 3 1948 Martinique Fusillade du Carbet. General strike at the Lajus plantation. The cane cutters request the application of the same wages and conditions as 1947. The owner refuses. A shooting disperses workers and onlookers. On the ground, 3 dead and 2 wounded.
2 3 1956 Algeria Creation of the General Union of Algerian Workers by the FLN.
2 3 1969 South Africa SACTU leaders exiled in Zambia meet to develop a strategy to revitalize the union, which has been rendered ineffective by the apartheid government.
3 3 1985 UK A Special Delegate Conference of the NUM votes by 98-91 for a return to work after the year-long miners' strike.
3 3 1937 Canada Polish and Italian migrant workers start a sit-down strike at the Holmes Foundry in Sarnia, Ontario. A mob of 300 "Canadian-born" men evict them and also attack their homes. Fifty workers are injured.
3 3 1921 Russia he first issue of the Kronstadt Izvestia, bulletin of rebel sailors, soldiers & workers of Kronstadt was published.
3 3 1976 Spain In Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spanish police killed 5 workers and injured another 100 during a general strike.
3 3 1919 Germany At the call of the German Communist Party, the workers' councils in Berlin launched a general strike. Reichswehr Minister declares siege followed by clashes between demonstrators and army the next day.
4 3 1910 Canada An avalanche in the Rogers Pass, British Columbia, takes the lives of workers clearing snow from Canadian Pacific Railway tracks. A total of 62 bodies are recovered, including four the following spring. The dead include 32 contract labourers from Japan.
4 3 1919 Italy In the Rome region, the beginning of a peasant movement as veterans move to occupy the land left fallow by big landowners. There are 500 in Ariccia and 3000 in Albano alone.
4 3 2008 Germany Hundreds of thousands of bus and train drivers, preschool teachers, and waterworks employees walk off their jobs in most of Germany's 16 states in an effort to win higher pay for public service workers.
5 3 1943 Italy The strike at FIAT that marked the beginning of the end for Mussolini starts. Within a week over 100,000 workers were on strike and the armed resistance had begun.
5 3 1984 United Kingdom 6,000 miners went on strike at Cottonwood Colliery starting the great UK miners strike. They were joined by the majority of workers in the industry in opposition to pit closures, but their eventual defeat marked a damaging blow for working class power.
6 3 1912 Australia The Brisbane general strike officially ends after employers agree strikers will not face victimisation
6 3 1964 Guyana Kowsilla, a striking sugarcane worker was killed in Guyana by a scab, and others badly injured. The British Tate sugar company was using African scabs to try to break a national strike of predominantly Asian workers.
6 3 1913 United States of America Joe Hill's song "There is Power in a Union" first appeared in the @_IWW union's Little Red Song Book.
6 3 1925 Canada Nova Scotia coal miners shut down the mines after the British Empire Steel Corporation refuses to continue contract negotiations and cuts off credit at company stores. It is the beginning of an historic five-month strike.
6 3 1955 South Africa Progressive members of the TLC join forces with CNETU unions to create SACTU (South African Council of Trade Unions) in Johannesburg with 9 affiliates and 20,000 members. By 1959 there will be 35 affiliates and 46,000 members.
6 3 1984 United Kingdom The great miners' strike broke out when Thatcher announced the closure of 20 wells and 50 others to follow. It will last a year without any results.
7 3 1978 Canada Women workers begin a 23-week strike for a first contract at a small auto parts plant in Centralia, Ontario. The Fleck workers' militancy wins wide support and shows the need for reforms in labour law.
7 3 1860 United States of America Some 6,000 shoemakers, later joined by 20,000 other workers, are on strike in Lynn, Massachussets. They get wage increases but not recognition for their union.
7 3 1920 United States of America �Hunger march� by the unemployed to the Ford factories in Dearborn, asking for help and hiring. Police shoot at crowd, killing 4 and injuring 60 people.
7 3 1942 France Pierre S�mard, Secretary General of the F�d�ration des Cheminots, General Councilor of the Seine, Member of the political bureau of the PCF, was shot by the Hitlerites.
7 3 1921 Russia Bolshevik Red Army attacks Kronstadt Commune - workers and sailors who first started the Russian revolution hold out 12 days
7 3 1997 France All auto workers strike in Belgium + Eurostrike at Renault (France, Spain) following Vilvoorde factory closure announcement
7 3 1917 Russia Workers at the Putilov steel plant announce a strike. It is the beginning of what will become the February Revolution, leading to the fall of the Tsar.
7 3 1932 United States of America Unemployed workers stage a hunger march to the Ford complex at Dearborn, demanding workers be rehired. Police shoot at the demonstration, killing 4 and injuring 60
8 3 1917 Russia There are mass rallies and meetings in Petrograd to mark International Women's Day. Women visit surrounding factories, bringing 50,000 workers out on strike. The February Revolution is under way.
8 3 1942 United States of America Lucy Parsons, founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and powerful orator for women, working people, and political prisoners died.
8 3 1926 United States of America Fur & Leather Workers Union (mostly women) went on strike in NYC, enduring beatings by police. They won a 10% raise and a five-day week.
8 3 1905 Spain Dolores Prat Coll was born in Catalonia to a poor family. She became a prominent militant in the CNT and helped organize worker-controlled industry during the Spanish revolution. She remained active until her death in 2001.
8 3 1980 Canada In Hamilton, Ontario, an International Women's Day rally features the Women Back Into Stelco campaign. A human rights complaint by five women forces a major steel company to change their hiring practices.
8 3 1907 France A law allows married women to freely dispose of their wages.
8 3 1921 Russia Lenin decides on an International Women's Day, the date of which he fixes, 8 March, in memory of workers in St. Petersburg.
9 3 1952 Russia Alexandra Kollontai, Russian Marxist revolutionary, dies.
9 3 1910 United States of America Westmoreland County Coal strikes begins, ending in 1911. It is known as the 'Slovak strike', as 70% of the miners are Slovakian. 16 people are killed.
9 3 1906 Canada Mineworkers in the Lethbridge, Alberta district go on strike against poverty wages and are met by scabs, police and private detectives. They win a small wage increase with the help of a mediator, but the company refuses to recognize the union.
9 3 1945 Vietnam The Saigon tram company is placed under Japanese control. The 400 employees form a workers' committee, transmit their demands and obtain a salary increase and the election of delegates.
9 3 2007 Germany The statutory retirement age is raised from 65 to 67.
9 3 1905 France General strike in Brest, clashes with troops are daily especially in the Saint-Martin district. Today, 88 establishments are on strike and there are 3752 strikers.
10 3 1906 France The Catastrophe de Courri�res. It was a mining disaster killing 1060 workers and sparking a 55 day strike, which was eventually crushed by the French Army.
10 3 1917 Russia General strike in Petrograd. By telegram Nicolas II gives the order to "immediately put an end to the disorders in the capital". 150 die.
10 3 1925 Canada The Hamilton Tigers, who finished first in the regular season, strike for an increase of $200 per game. On the 15th the team was suspended from further play for the Stanley Cup.
10 3 1957 Canada Copper miners at Murdochville, Quebec launch a strike for union recognition. The unsuccessful struggle lasts seven months and the courts award Noranda Mines $1.5 million in damages, to be paid by the United Steelworkers.
10 3 1919 Germany Leo Jogiches, Polish-German socialist and co-founder of the German Communist Party, is arrested and executed as he investigates the murder of his comrades Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht.
11 3 1811 United Kingdom Luddites smash 63 �labor saving� textile machines near Nottingham, England
11 3 1950 United States of America TWU members at American Airlines win 11-day national strike, gaining what the union says was the first severance pay clause in industry.
11 3 1883 Germany Paul Levi, German socialist and revolutionary, is born in Hechingen.
11 3 1946 Africa Decree of the Popular Front government authorizing the establishment of trade unions in the colonies of French West Africa by local French subjects.
11 3 1919 United Kingdom The start of the strike and mutiny of British troops stationed in Calais, France after World War I which won concessions and help speed up demobilisation.
11 3 1906 France Courri�res disaster, 1,101 miners killed in mine explosion. The employer is implicated. 60,000 strikers clash with non-strikers and 30,000 armed troops sent to restore order.
11 3 1946 Congo-Kinshasa Ordinance of the Belgian colonial authority on the indigenous professional organization drawn up so as to make any authentic trade unions impossible.
11 3 1969 France National strike at the call of all the Confederations, the demonstrations are massive, a political action to press their demands against the government. De Gaulle lost his referendum of April 27, 1969 and had to resign.
12 3 2012 Canada Union organizer and feminist Madeleine Parent, born in Montreal in 1918, dies at age 93 after a lifetime of service to the organization of workers and the cause of social justice.
12 3 1929 United States of America Lupe Anguiano, women's rights activist and labour organizer, is born.
12 3 1951 Spain 300,000 workers stage general strike in Barcelona #Spain to protest grievances with the Franco dictatorship. Troops were deployed and thousands arrested but the strike encouraged workers struggles across the region.
12 3 1912 United States of America The Bread and Roses strikers won all their demands. The strike was organized by mostly women workers and the Industrial Workers of the World and included 20,000 workers.
12 3 1909 France Postal workers strike against a wage grid. The Army is called in to replace the postal workers. Clashes. 800 workers are sacked..
13 3 2012 Bolivia Domitila Ch�ngara, Bolivian socialist, feminist & labour organiser died aged 74. Began her activism when her husband, a tin miner, was imprisoned for striking. She was arrested many times and eventually exiled.
13 3 1920 Germany After the Kapp Putsch and calls for a general strike by the SPD, workers of the anarcho-syndicalist FAUD formed a council and took control of S�mmerda, Germany. Troops killed 23 and arrested 180 before retaking the town.
13 3 1919 Canada In Calgary, Alberta, the Western Canadian Labour Conference calls for sweeping political and economic changes, including abolition of production for profit and the organization of workers on industrial lines. They adopt the name One Big Union.
13 3 1924 Luxembourg Adoption of a bill establishing elective (joint) professional Chambers.
13 3 1830 United States of America The term �rat,� referring to a worker who betrays fellow workers, first appears in print in the New York Daily Sentinel
14 3 1883 Global Karl Marx dies in London UK at age 64.
14 3 2017 Spain Joaquina Dorado Pita, Spanish wood workers' union militant who participated in the colectivization of the industry in the revolution and member of the anti-Franco underground, died in Barcelona just short of her 100th birthday.
14 3 1920 Germany General strike called to counter the Kapp-Von Luttwitz coup d'etat. In Berlin at 17:00. there are no trams, water, gas or electricity. Clashes break out between soldiers and workers.
15 3 1917 United States of America The Supreme Court approves the 8-hour day law as rail workers threaten national strike.
15 3 1920 Germany The Kapp-L�ttwitz government is paralyzed. Fighting in Leipzig, Frankfurt, Halle and Kiel. Mutiny in Wilhelmshaven. In Hagen, the "red army" of 2,000 armed workers marches on Wetter.
15 3 1944 France The National Council of Resistance (CNR) adopts its action program for liberated France: creation of social security, job security, rights at work and pensions.
15 3 1948 United States of America National strike by bituminous coal miners demanding pensions.
15 3 1984 United Kingdom After a few days of the great miners' strike, David Jones is hit in the head by a brick and dies in a confrontation between police, strikers, and non-strikers.
15 3 2001 Brazil A series of explosions occur on the Petrobras oil platform P-36, leaving 11 oilworkers dead.
16 3 1909 France First strike by postal workers begins. It lasts until March 23.
16 3 1920 Germany Workers are fighting or preparing for it all over the country. The "Red Army" marches on Dortmund. At 13:00, Kapp gives the order "to shoot the leaders and workers on the picket lines".
16 3 1960 United States of America The United Teachers' Federation is formed in New York to represent public school teachers and later all education workers in the metropolis.
16 3 1977 France Unions win retirement at age 60 for women.
17 3 1960 Canada Five Italian immigrant workers die in an underground tunnel at a watermain construction project in suburban Toronto. The Hoggs Hollow Disaster draws public attention to the unsafe conditions in construction and the exploitation of immigrant workers.
17 3 1872 France The Dufaure Law punishes with a prison sentence any organization "whose aim is to cause the suspension of work, the abolition of the right of property, of the family, of religion".
17 3 1920 Germany During the night, a pioneer regiment mutinies in Berlin. The army is no longer safe. Kapp realizes the defeat. He chose to flee, followed closely by General von L�ttwitz. The general strike and heavy fighting continue.
17 3 1946 Congo-Kinshasa Ordinance N�82 / AIMO supplemented by the ordinance of May 10, 1946 legalize black unions, but mixed unions remain prohibited and the colonial administration can veto their decisions.
18 3 1871 France The Paris Commune establishes a "minimum labor price", gender equality, the abolition of night work for bakers, the prohibition of fines and deductions from wages, etc.
18 3 1886 Belgium A riot broke out in Li�ge at the end of an anarchist demonstration. The anger that erupts is that of workers crushed by the "law of the market" and by the incredible "dualisation" of society.
18 3 1913 France Le Havre. 1200 participants in a public meeting organized by the trade unions accuse the government of preparing for war.
18 3 1917 Austria A decree limits the mobility of the female workforce and creates grievance committees to mitigate labour disputes.
18 3 1834 United Kingdom The Tolpuddle Martyrs were banished to Australia.
18 3 1937 United States of America New York City police arrested striking Woolworth's store clerks - mostly women - who had occupied stores demanding a 40-hour workweek.
19 3 1886 Belgium The miners of Jemeppe-sur-Meuse begin a strike which spreads throughout the basin, for a salary increase. The civic guards of Leuven and Brussels are sent to suppress the struggle. The Li�ge court pronounces 77 convictions.
19 3 1911 Europe 1 million women demonstrate in Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Denmark for the right to vote and the right to hold public office, the right to work and the elimination of discrimination at work.
19 3 1937 Madagascar At the time a French colony, the trade union legislation of the Metropolis had not applied. A decree, drawn up by the Popular Front government of France, authorizes the creation of workers' unions effective this date.
19 3 2009 France The most important of the four days of strikes and demonstrations organized by the eight largest unions brings together 3 million people against the policies of Nicolas Sarkozy.
19 3 1919 India Ahmedabad mill workers, with help from Gandhi, win a 35% pay rise after 25 days of strike action
20 3 1868 France Verdict in the trial of the leadership of the French section of the International Workingmen�s Association. Its dissolution is pronounced. A second bureau has already been elected, whose leading figures are Eug�ne Varlin and Beno�t Malon.
20 3 1955 Morocco The Moroccan Labour Union (UMT) is created and begins to organize clandestinely.
20 3 1960 Morocco The General Union of Workers of Morocco (UGTM) affiliated to the Party of the Istiqlal is created following a split within the Moroccan Union of Labor (UMT).
20 3 2001 Brazil The giant P-36 oil platform, operated by Petrobras, sinks following a series of explosions which occurred on March 15 and which left 11 dead.
21 3 1804 France Article 1781 of the Civil Code stipulates that in the event of a dispute over wages, the word of the boss prevails over that of the worker before the courts (repealed in 1868).
21 3 1884 France The Waldeck-Rousseau law authorizes the creation of professional unions, but requires the filing of statutes and the names of directors.
21 3 1857 Australia Trade unionist and suffragist Alice Henry is born in Melbourne.
22 3 1841 France Law restricting child labour in companies with fewer than 20 workers. 8h / day for children from 8 to 12 years old, 12h between 12 and 16 years old. Minimum age for night work = 13 years. Rarely enforced.
22 3 1902 Belgium Revolver shots are fired at the end of a workers' meeting in La Louvi�re, the post office is blown up.
22 3 1920 Germany The general strike in progress since the 14th ends. A new social democratic government was formed, chaired by Hermann M�ller, who instructed General von Watter to restore order in the Ruhr area and crush the Red Army there.
22 3 1920 Italy In a Turin foundry belonging to Fiat, the Internal Commission opposes the time change made the day before. A worker resets the clock to the time of the sun setting off the "Strike of Clocks".
23 3 1870 France In Le Creusot, 1,500 miners go on strike against a cut in their wages. The strike fails and 25 leaders aresentencing to a total of 298 months in prison, throwing their families into poverty and misery.
23 3 1979 France Demonstration of steelworkers in Paris organized by the CGT against the restructuring of their industry by the Barre government. Violent clashes with "autonomes".
24 3 1961 Martinique In Lamentin, as a demonstration of farm workers on strike for better wages disperses, the colonial army fires a machine gun. 3 dead and 20 injured, all shot in the back.
25 3 1886 Belgium The coal miners of "Bois Communal de Fleurus" went on strike and also stopped work at a neighboring mine, the "Soci�t� du Nord" in Gilly. From mine to mine, groups of strikers formed processions and spread everywhere to stop work at other mines.
25 3 1919 France Establishment of collective agreements intended to fix wages, organization of the working day, etc.
25 3 1982 France The retirement age is lowered to 60 years (57 years for civil servants) for employees with the necessary 37.5 years of employment.
25 3 2006 Canada An accounting instructor dies from injuries received on the picket line at Centennial College in Toronto during a province-wide strike. John Stammers, 62, was a member of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union.
26 3 1871 France Election of the Paris Commune. Out of 80 elected members, 25 are workers. Among the elected representatives are Eug�ne Varlin, Z�phirin Cam�linat, Beno�t Malon, L�o Frankel, leaders of the First International.
26 3 1886 Belgium The miners on strike organized flying pickets and stopped the rolling mills, foundries and glassworks in the region.
26 3 1926 Morocco First strike of railway workers at the initiative of the unions for improved wages.
26 3 1956 France Creation of a Federation in France by the Union Syndicale des Travailleurs Algeriens which brings together 100,000 members in one year and publishes "The Voice of the Algerian Worker".
26 3 1917 France Until April 18, the 300 workers at Maison Lapeyrere refused the directives of the officers of the Military Workforce Control and "remain playing cards at construction sites".
27 3 1912 Canada Thousands of workers start to walk out of railway construction camps on the Fraser River in British Columbia in a strike led by the Industrial Workers of the World. When Joe Hill visits, he writes a song for the Wobbly song book.
27 3 1984 New Zealand Caretaker Ernie Abbott died is the bombing of the Wellington Trades Hall in a bitterly divided political landscape scarred by anti-unionism.
27 3 1933 Ireland Mobs inspired by priests attack Connolly House and other buildings housing leftwing organisations in Dublin.
28 3 1909 France Mounted gendarmes charge a procession of button workers on their way to M�ru, injuring twenty, most of them women. Protesters strike back with volleys of stones.
28 3 1914 Russia General strike in Saint Petersburg. 45,000 unemployed people and workers form rallies and sing revolutionary songs.
28 3 2006 France Demonstrations bring together 3 million people against the 'first hiring contract' which guts young workers' rights.
28 3 2010 China Following a flood, 153 workers find themselves trapped in the Coal Mine 18 of Wangjialing, in Shanxi province. At least 3,000 volunteer miners participate in the rescue by pumping approximately 2,000 m3 of water per hour.
28 3 1920 Italy State of siege in Turin, riflemen and royal guards occupy factories, cavalry, machine guns and armoured vehicles patrol the streets. The bosses want workers to recognize "the foremen appointed by management" as the sole authority in the factories.
29 3 1886 Belgium In the center of the glass industry north of Charleroi, soldiers open fire on strikers in Roux, a massacre that leaves 12 dead.
29 3 1943 Spain 9 members of "Juventudes libertarias", a group composed mostly of CNT members, opposing the fascist military regime, are arrested and garroted at the Modelo prison, the first of tens of thousands to suffer the same fate under Franco.
29 3 1933 France Citro�n workers start a strike against the drop in wages, between 15 and 30%. They are subjected to a ruthless repression: the police surround the factory and arrest nearly 200 workers on the first day. The walkout lasts until 5 May.
29 3 1988 Philippines Half a million workers in the Philippines went on a general strike in pursuit of an across-the-board flat rate pay increase.
30 3 1976 Palestine Palestinians begin a general strike in Palestine and in Israel in protest at the Israeli govt seizing land owned by Arabs in Galilee to build settlements and IDF facilities.
30 3 1846 France Workers' demonstration in Saint-Etienne, suppressed by the army: six dead.
31 3 2004 Canada Bill C-45 comes into force, amending the Criminal Code to impose penalties on corporations and managers for violations causing workplace injuries or death. It is named the Westray Bill after the 1992 mine disaster.
31 3 1966 France Five trade union organizations are recognized as "representative" at the national level: FO, CGT, CFDT, CFTC and CGC.
31 3 1992 France Closure the "working-class fortress", the Renault factory on Seguin Island, in Boulogne Billancourt.
31 3 1898 Belgium Law granting 'civil personality' to professional unions, strengthening the labour movement.
31 3 1949 Canada The Canadian Seamen's Union launches a strike to defend union contracts. Shipping companies and Canadian authorities collaborate with the Seafarers' International Union to drive out the CSU.
31 3 1927 United States of America Cesar Chavez, Mexican-American labour leader, is born.
1 4 1882 Egypt Charcoal workers on the Suez Canal went on strike, in the first recorded strike in the modern history of the country.
1 4 1903 Belgium The Belgian Federation of Trade Union Metallurgists is formed with 7.128 members in 3 regional federations, Brussels (1.280), Center (1.400) and Charleroi (1.200). Its bilingual journal is compulsory for all affiliates.
1 4 1910 France After 3 months of steelworkers strike in Chambon, the bosses give in and agree to negotiate with the CGT.
1 4 1944 France Following a modest attack on a military convoy near Ascq station, 86 innocent civilians are shot by the German occupier. 60,000 workers go on strike in Lille.
1 4 1999 United Kingdom Introduction of the national minimum wage.
1 4 1903 Canada In Montr�al, more than 2000 longshoremen go on strike at the beginning of the shipping season in the port. Militia are called out, and crowds rally to support the strikers. After five weeks, they win union recognition and more pay.
2 4 1920 Germany Military forces began assault against the workers' uprising in the Ruhr, Germany. The Social Democrats sent troops, including proto-fascists who tried to overthrow them like the Freikorps, to massacre workers, killing at least 1000.
2 4 2011 North America American and Canadian unionists demonstrate on the border between British Columbia and Washington to show solidarity with Wisconsin workers whose rights are undermined by the state government.
2 4 1911 Belgium In the Li�ge region, the establishment, following a strike, of the 9.5 hour day in printing works.
2 4 1874 Australia Workers at Moonta Mines begin a two-week strike that successfully prevents their wages being cut by maangement.
2 4 1976 Fiji Oil workers strike against 3 companies begins. The union was seeking a $1.31/hour wage rate.
3 4 1920 Germany The KAPD (Communist Workers' Party of Germany) was formed. In contrast to the KPD (the official Communist Party), which tried to get into government, the KAPD stood for direct action under the control of workers themselves.
3 4 1919 France Start of a strike that lasts until May 26, 8,000 miners fought against falling wages and the employers' refusal to negotiate. Their strike is crushed by the state.
3 4 1920 Germany Von Watter's troops recover by arms, the Ruhr. Soon, heavy sentences will be pronounced against the militant workers. A month after the putsch's defeat by the general strike, the accomplices of the putschists take their revenge.
3 4 1968 United States of America In a church in Memphis, Tennessee, 10,000 citizens gather to hear what will be the last speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He will stress the similarities between the labour movement and that of civil rights.
3 4 1885 Russia Yakov Sverdlov is born in Nizhny Novgorod. He will become a leading Bolshevik revolutionary and first chairman of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets
4 4 1871 France Collapse of the Commune de Marseille.
4 4 1913 Russia 270 dead in the crackdown on a demonstration by Siberian gold mine workers for better working conditions, the 8-hour day and higher wages.
4 4 1930 Tunisia Publication of the first issue of �Tunisie Ouvri�re�, CGT newspaper.
4 4 1963 France End of strike by miners from Lorraine and Nord-Pas-de-Calais who win a 11% salary increase and a fourth week of paid vacation.
4 4 2012 Bangladesh Aminul Islam, creator of unions in the textile industry in Dhaka which produces clothing for the big brands, is kidnapped, beaten and tortured. His body, found on the side of the road, is burned and buried by the police in a mass grave.
5 4 1844 United Kingdom Miners in Northumberland and Durham held a mass meeting with up to 40,000 in attendance and went on strike for better conditions and equal pay across different mines. It lasted 20 weeks and was the biggest UK strike to that date.
5 4 1885 Belgium 59 workers 'associations founded the Belgian Workers' Party (POB). Universal suffrage, compulsory education, separation of Church and State are the strengths of its program.
5 4 1910 France The retirement age is set at 65. The CGT refers to this as a "swindle" (life expectancy was then less than 49 years).
5 4 1927 United Kingdom Parliament adopts a labour relations law prohibiting sympathy strikes and general strikes.
5 4 1975 Fiji 350 airport workers refuse to service Air Pacific planes in solidarity with striking airline employees.
6 4 1912 UK After 37 days, Britain's first national coalmining strike ends. It results in the passage of the Coal Mines (Minimum Wage) Act.
6 4 1980 Canada The Canadian Farmworkers Union holds its founding convention at Douglas College and delegates elect Raj Chouhan as CFU president. The CFU is Canada's first agricultural workers union.
6 4 2011 Gabon End of a successful four day oil workers strike to prevent foreign workers working in the industry without permits.
6 4 2008 Egypt Textile workers in Mahalla strike, kicking-off the revolution against the Mubarak regime.
7 4 1943 Cuba The Central de Trabajadores de Cuba is legalized after having been underground or semi-legal for almost 20 years.
7 4 1919 Germany Workers' councils declared the Bavarian Council Republic in Germany. However troops sent by the Social Democratic government crushed the rebellion at the end of the month, killing hundreds.
8 4 1937 Canada In Oshawa, Ontario, 4,000 workers go on strike at the General Motors plant for recognition of the United Auto Workers. They win major concessions, and the strike is often considered the birth of industrial unionism in Canada.
8 4 1911 United States of America An explosion at the Banner coal mine near Birmingham, Alabama, kills 128 prisoners rented to the company as miners, under a contract with the prison administration.
8 4 1958 Barbados A wildcat strike at 2 sugar plantations starts. It soon spreads and becomes national.
9 4 1987 Spain 8000 workers blocked a major road in Cadiz, Spain, as part of a militant and successful fight against the privatisation of the Puerto Real shipyards.
9 4 1904 France 800 workers at the Hermitage slate mines in Maine and Loire, return to work after a week on strike after winning a 10 hour working day.
9 4 1983 Canada A tractor trailer drives through a picket line at a strikebound Alcan plant in Scarborough, Ontario, causing the death of Claude Dougdeen, 51, a Trinidad immigrant and father of seven. Outraged union leaders call on the province to bring in anti-scab laws.
10 4 1930 United States of America Dolores Huerta, Mexican-American labour leader, is born.
10 4 1984 UK The House of Commons meets for an emergency debate on the role of police in the miners strike,
10 4 1908 USA Scabs arrive to help the management of Pensacola's streetcar system. Violence erupts and the mayor sets up curfew, prevents public gatherings, and calls in State militia troops. Over the next few weeks, the strike is broken.
10 4 2006 France Following mass protests by workers and young people across France, the regressive CPE law was repealed. Had the law passed, it would have allowed employers to fire any workers below the age of 26 without giving any reason or notice.
10 4 1932 Russia Thousands of mostly women mill workers joined a strike against the reduction in rations.
10 4 1911 Peru A general strike erupted in Lima. The stoppage broke out in support of a walkout of 500 workers at a cotton mill who wanted better pay, no night shift and a reduction of the working day from 13 to 10 hours. They won.
10 4 1919 Ireland Union militant and IRA volunteer Robert Byrne was buried in Limerick. His funeral became a grand show of defiance with over 10,000 people joining the cortege. Later a general strike and soviet was declared
10 4 1969 Indonesia Worker activist and martyr Marsinah was born. In 1993, working in a watch factory, she helped organise a strike for the minimum wage. They won, but she was kidnapped, tortured, raped and murdered, probably by the military regime of Suharto.
11 4 1972 Canada More than 200,000 public sector workers, organized in the Qu�bec Common Front, begin a ten-day strike. Three leaders are jailed, but the Common Front ultimately succeeds in winning a $100 minimum weekly wage for public employees.
11 4 1931 Spain Revolutionary textile worker & feminist Teresa Claramunt died in Barcelona aged 67. A pioneering advocate for women's liberation, anarchism & the working class, she took part in many strikes. 50,000 attended her funeral
11 4 1934 United States of America Frank Norman is murdered by the Ku Klux Klan for organising citrus workers irrespective of their race.
11 4 1974 United States of America United Mine Workers President W. A. �Tony� Boyle is found guilty of first-degree murder, for ordering the 1969 assassination of union reformer Joseph A. �Jock� Yablonski. Yablonski, his wife and daughter were murdered on December 30, 1969.
12 4 1934 USA Toledo, Ohio Depression-Era Auto-Lite Strike. Beatings, tear gas, gun fire, and eventually 900 National Guardsmen with machine guns were involved. They evacuated thed the strikebreakers from the plant.
12 4 1920 Ireland Unions launched a general strike in support of pro-independence prisoners who were on hunger strike in Mountjoy prison, Dublin. After two days, the British government caved and released all the prisoners.
12 4 1927 China Kuomintang forces, under the direction of Chiang Kai-shek, massacre trade union militants and socialists in Shanghai.
13 4 1919 Senegal The first major strike by railway workers on the Dakar-Niger Railway line connecting Dakar to Saint-Louis. A 48 hour work stoppage produced a wage increase of more than 30%.
14 4 1816 Barbados A slave uprising known as Bussa�s rebellion, named after its leader, broke out on Easter Sunday night in Barbados. Slaves took advantage of the temporary freedom from work and the cover of permitted gathering for festivities.
14 4 1919 Ireland In Limerick, Ireland, a general strike was declared in protest against the declaration by the British military of a �Special Militarised Zone� in the area. The general strike saw the creation of the short-lived Limerick Soviet.
14 4 1979 South Africa Inaugural meeting of FOSATU in Hammanskraal, the first non-racial, democratic national trade union federation with a strong field organization encouraging workers' control.
14 4 1912 New Zealand The start of the Waihi Miners Strike, New Zealand. One of the country's most bitter disputes was to last six months.
14 4 1939 United States of America 'The Grapes of Wrath', John Steinbeck's classic novel about itinerant labor, strikes and the Great Depression, is published.
15 4 1903 Canada British Columbia union organizer Frank Rogers, a longshoreman, dies after he is shot while supporting clerical workers on strike against the Canadian Pacific Railway in Vancouver.
15 4 1916 United States of America The newspaper of the Industrial Workers of the World union announced the formation of its Domestic Workers Union in Denver.
15 4 1973 United States of America housands of members of the United Farm Workers union walked out on strike. They were battling the Teamsters union over the right to represent farm workers. The dispute ended with victory for the UFW.
15 4 1902 Belgium The general strike immobilizes the Borinage, the Centre and Charleroi. Having suffered several setbacks, workers demand wage increases.
15 4 1872 Canada Toronto printers attract a massive crowd of 10,000 people to Queen's Park in support of their strike for the nine-hour day. Union leaders are arrested for conspiracy the next day.
15 4 1856 UK Tom Mann, British syndicalist and a leader of the dock strikes in 1889 and 1911, is born
15 4 1889 United States of America Birth of labour and civil rights leader A. Phillip Randolph
16 4 1989 China The first student protest in Tiananmen Square occur as wreaths are laid in honour of Hu Yaobang
16 4 1913 Belgium the parliament of Belgium meets against the backdrop of a huge general strike for universal suffrage
16 4 1970 United States of America A white foreman at a Chrysler plant in Detroit threatened to murder a black worker. When the worker complained Chrysler sacked him. 1,000 workers, white and black, walked out on strike in protest until management backed down.
16 4 2010 Spain All professional footballers in Spain went on strike in support of colleagues who had not been paid by the football clubs which employed them.
17 4 1944 United States of America Members of the militant machinists' union Lodge 68 in San Francisco began an overtime ban in pursuance of a new contract. They ended up fighting the employer, the government and even the Communist Party.
17 4 1920 Ireland Dockers in Dublin refused to load foodstuffs destined for England. The action helped relieve severe food shortages in Dublin, which had been dire since 1917, while huge quantities of food were shipped to Britain.
17 4 1886 Belgium Establishment of a Labour Commission to resolve conflicts through mediation.
17 4 1905 France 5000 striking workers attempt to free their comrades from Limoges prison. 1,200 soldiers with drawn sabers charge them then shoot at a garden where some take refuge. A porcelain maker named Vardelle is killed, 3 are seriously injured.
17 4 1912 Russia Tsarist troops shoot dozens of striking gold miners dead near the Lena River in Siberia
18 4 1872 Canada The first issue of the Ontario Workman appears, with the slogan �The equalization of all elements of society in the social scale should be the true aim of civilization.� It also publishes an excerpt on "the normal working day" from Karl Marx's Capital.
18 4 1902 Belgium 6 workers killed and 14 injured during the general strike before this date. Two of the dead were shot five times in the head. On this day in Leuven, a bourgeois militia shoots at a workers' demonstration killing 8 people.
18 4 1941 United States of America After 4 weeks of a boycott, New York bus companies agree to hire 200 black drivers and mechanics
18 4 1872 Canada Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald announces a Trade Union Act stating that unions are legal. This is two days after leaders of the Toronto printers, with strong public support in their strike for a nine-hour day, are arrested for common conspiracy.
19 4 2003 Nigeria Striking workers occupy 4 offshore oil rigs.
19 4 1974 Canada In a targeted campaign for pay equity, postal workers begin a seven-day illegal strike that wins women postal code machine operators the same pay as male postal clerks.
19 4 1968 Italy While 6,000 textile workers were on strike in Valdagno, scabs were snuck into the factory under police protection. Strikers fought 1000 police and toppled the bronze statue of the factory�s founder.
19 4 1889 Argentina Feminist and worker activist Juana Rouco Buela was born in Spain. Moving to Buenos Aires, she organised female sugar workers, took part in tenants' and workers' strikes, was deported but returned and never gave up.
19 4 1905 France 10,000 at Vardelle's funeral in Limoges, "victim of the capitalist regime", "our brother assassinated on April 17 by French bullets".
19 4 1920 Italy The general strike paralyzed the Turin region for a week, Lombardy joins the movement. In Boulogne, Pisa, Florence and Lucca, railway workers block military convoys and in Genoa, trains and boats.
19 4 1924 Russia The Kronstadt revolt was crushed by the Red Army commanded by Trotsky: 4,836 sailors were deported, 6,528 arrested, 2,168 executed. 10,000 dead on the Red Army side in repeated failures to retake the city.
19 4 1947 Senegal A strike on the eve of a visit by the President of the French Republic obtained an agreement on a unified framework for railway workers, and the maintenance of 3,000 jobs. The employers then thwarted the negotiations, causing a wave of strikes.
20 4 1914 USA Ludow Massacre in southern Colorado, one of the deadliest attacks against striking workers in U. S. history. Tent colony of displaced strikers and their families beaten and fired upon by Natl Guard and private agency. Two dozen men, women, children killed.
20 4 1902 Belgium The General Council of the Belgian Workers' Party votes to resume work ending the general strike in progress since the 14th. The disappointment in the ranks is immense.
21 4 1834 United Kingdom 30,000 marched for the freedom of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, agricultural workers from the Dorset town of Tolpuddle who were transported to Australia as punishment for their trade unionism.
21 4 2007 Egypt 150 garment workers, mostly women, occupied the Mansoura-Espa�a textile factory in Egypt against job losses and unpaid wages. The workers held out for 2 months against bosses and the 'official' union, winning concessions.
21 4 1920 United States of America The Anaconda Road massacre took place in Butte, Montana, when mine guards employed by the Anaconda company shot 17 striking miners, killing one. All were shot in the back as they tried to flee. No one was charged for the killing.
21 4 1894 United States of America A nationwide strike of coal miners against pay cuts began. 145,000 miners walked out, and despite violent repression and facing starvation they held out for weeks and won some concessions.
21 4 1967 United States of America New York Governor Rockefeller signs the Taylor Law, allowing unions in the public sector, but banning strikes.
21 4 1856 Australia A day long strike by Melbourne stonemasons wins the enforcement of the eight hour day.
22 4 1870 Russia Birth of Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.
23 4 1938 Jamaica The Poor Man's Improvement and Land Settlement Association presents its petition to the Governor of the island, protesting "landlords who are sucking out our vitalities."
23 4 1914 UK First publication of the classic socialist novel 'The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists'
23 4 1918 Ireland A massive general strike was held in Ireland in protest at the threat of conscription to the UK army, shutting down the country. Conscription was introduced but not one person was actually conscripted.
23 4 1905 France Formation of the Unified Socialist Party, French section of the International Workers to "pass social laws likely to immediately improve the lot of the working class".
23 4 1956 Canada More than 1600 delegates attend the founding convention of the Canadian Labour Congress, a merger of the Trades and Labour Congress and the Canadian Congress of Labour. They call for a national health plan, full employment and a guaranteed annual wage.
24 4 1919 USA General strike in Linton, IN. New HomeTelephone operator "girls" put down their headsets demanding wage increases and union recognition. National Guard was sent in, and there was violence, but Lintoners supported the strikers who got their union.
24 4 2013 Bangladesh 1134 garment workers, most of them women, die and 2500+ are injured in the Rana Plaza factory disaster. The building collapse is believed to be the most deadly garment industry workplace mass murder in history.
24 4 1999 United States of America The ILWU halts shipping on the West Coast in solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal.
25 4 2013 Bangladesh 100,000s of garment workers walked out in protest of the previous day's building collapse which killed over 1,000. They barricaded roads, fought police and attacked factories, shops and garment bosses' HQ.
25 4 1912 United Kingdom 284 firemen on RMS Olympic � sister ship to the Titanic � were on strike in protest at unseaworthy lifeboats. Bosses brought in scabs, but then sailors mutinied. 54 were arrested and tried for mutiny, but weren't punished due to public support.
25 4 1826 United Kingdom A "mob" met at Henfield, near Blackburn/Burnley in the UK, and smashed every power loom within 6 miles, protesting against poverty and low wages.
25 4 1945 Italy Milan and Turin were liberated from fascism following a workers uprising and general strike. Though other towns and cities were liberated before and after, this date was immortalised in the annual Liberation Day celebrations.
25 4 1856 Australia A day-long strike by stonemasons led to the establishment of the 8-hour day.
25 4 1919 France In Lormaison, 1,000 button workers on strike for a month reject the latest employers' proposals to divide men and women workers.
25 4 2004 Canada The British Columbia Liberal government imposes a 15 per cent wages cut on health services workers. This leads to an illegal strike by 40,000 members of the Hospital Employees Union and a settlement that fails to stop the privatization of services.
26 4 1885 Italy Textile union leader Giuditta Zanella was born in Italy. Took part in 1920 factory occupations then moved to Spain and fought in the Durruti Column.
26 4 1797 United Kingdom Sailors on 15 Royal Navy ships in Plymouth joined a mutiny which began two weeks before in Spithead, near Portsmouth demanding better pay and conditions. Eventually the men won most of their demands.
26 4 1918 Canada After years of agitation by reformers and unions, the New Brunswick Workmen�s Compensation Act receives Royal Assent.
26 4 1909 France Deputies vote to ban civil servants' right to strike.
26 4 1942 China The Benxihu mine disaster leaves 1,549 dead. It�s the biggest mining disaster of all time
26 4 1990 Congo-Kinshasa Creation of the Democratic Confederation of Labour.
26 4 1998 Ireland A monument to Jim Connell, writer of 'The Red Flag', is unveiled in the village of Crossakiel.
27 4 1983 Canada As part of its anti-labour agenda, the Alberta government brings in legislation denying firefighters and healthcare workers the right to strike.
27 4 1918 India The country's first labour union was born in the city of Chennai, then known as Madras, when workers of Buckingham and Carnatic Mills formed the Madras Labour Union.
27 4 1934 Chile The FOCH union federation headquarters in Santiago, Chile was attacked by police and bosses' militia. Seven workers and one child were murdered, with 200 workers badly injured.
27 4 1998 Denmark A general strike in the private sector broke out, involving a fifth of the country's workforce.
27 4 1894 Ireland The founding conference of the Irish Trade Union Congress gets underway at the Trades Hall in Dublin.
28 4 1984 Canada The Canadian Labour Congress establishes the first National Day of Mourning for workers killed or injured on the job. The idea of a Workers' Memorial Day is adopted by more than 100 countries around the world.
28 4 1826 United Kingdom Weavers protesting for better wages were cleared from the streets by troops in Manchester.
28 4 1969 Japan Students and striking workers took to the streets of Tokyo, engaging in running battles with police and erecting barricades, creating an 800-metre area which they dubbed the �Ginza Liberated Area�.
29 4 1938 Jamaica 1000 labourers working on the construction of a large sugar factory on the Frome estate in Jamaica went on strike for more pay. It triggered a wave of strikes across the island which faced heavy repression from British police.
29 4 1903 Canada A sudden rock slide at Turtle Mountain kills more than 76 men, women and children in and around the town of Frank in the Crowsnest Pass. From inside the mine, 17 coal miners dig their way to safety.
30 4 1963 United Kingdom A boycott was launched of buses in Bristol, England, by a group of West Indian workers in protest at the bar on black and Asian workers working on buses in the city by bosses and the union. Months later they won.
30 4 1870 France The arrest of "all the individuals who make up the International" is ordered.
1 5 1906 Canada Socialists in Montr�al organize Canada's first May Day demonstration. The following year ten thousand people assemble in the Champs de Mars before the crowd is dispersed by police.
1 5 1923 India The country's first May Day celebration.
1 5 1903 Philippines he first May Day demo took place in the #Philippines organised by the Uni�n Obrera Democr�tica Filipina, the country's first true labour union which formed the previous year. In 1908, the government agreed to designate 1 May Labour day
1 5 1973 United Kingdom 1.6 million workers joined a one-day strike called by the Trades Union Congress in protest at government pay restraint in the face of price rises. The railways, car industry, newspaper printing, mining and docks were most affected.
1 5 1963 United Kingdom Students from Bristol University marched to the bus station and to the HQ of the TGWU union, in protest at the union's bar on black and Asian workers being employed in bus crews. They were heckled by white workers.
1 5 1891 France The Fusillade de Fourmies took place during the first French celebration of International Workers' Day when troops fired on peaceful strikers, killing 9 including Marie Blondeau and wounding 35.
1 5 1886 United States of America Between 300,000 to half a million workers went on strike and rallies were held throughout the United States, with the cry, "Eight-hour day with no cut in pay".
1 5 1889 Global May Day - the international workers' holiday.
1 5 1946 Australia Eight hundred Aboriginal workers walk-off twenty-seven sheep stations in Western Australia, beginning the Pilbara strike that lasts until 1949.
1 5 1986 Canada Shirley Carr becomes the first woman president of the Canadian Labour Congress. A coal miner's daughter who became a member of the Canadian Union of Public Employees, she is also the first CLC president from a public sector union.
2 5 1952 Canada More than 1,000 retail employees, most of them women, begin a strike at Dupuis Fr�res, a major department store in Montr�al. It takes three months, but support for the new militancy among Catholic unions helps the workers win a collective agreement.
2 5 1933 Germany Nazis occupy the headquarters, seize the funds, and imprison the leaders of two of Germany�s largest trade union federations; independent trade unions were abolished.
2 5 1968 United States of America 4,000 workers in the Hamtramck auto plant in Detroit walked out against speed up. Several black strikers met in a bar opposite and founded the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement to organise black workers.
2 5 1919 Brazil A general strike of all different trades began in Sao Paulo.
2 5 1843 United States of America "Mill girls" � overwhelmingly female textile workers � walked out on strike in Massachusetts for better conditions.
2 5 1969 South Africa SACTU leaders meet in Tanzania to improve its overseas operations and decide to establish the union's headquarters in Zambia.
3 5 1986 United Kingdom Printworkers� March for Jobs led 15,000 on a march to Wapping, London, during the lockout at Rupert Murdoch's News International.
3 5 1382 Belgium A la suite de la r�volte des habitants de Gand en 1379, le Comte Louis II de Flandre prive Gand d�un acc�s � la mer. La victoire des Gandois � la Bataille de Beverhoutsveld encourage de nombreuses r�voltes paysannes dans la r�gion
3 5 1895 United States of America Eugene V. Debs and 6 other union railroad leaders are sentenced to 6 months in prison for contempt of court during a hearing over a strike at the Pullman luxury car manufacturing plants.
3 5 1946 Japan The new constitution recognizes in its article 28, the right of workers to participate in labour unions.
3 5 1927 Australia The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) is founded
3 5 1887 Canada British Columbia's worst mine disaster takes 150 lives after an explosion in a deep underground mine at Nanaimo. The casualties include 53 Chinese labourers, whose names were not recorded by the company.
4 5 1926 UK For the first and so far only time in British history, the TUC calls millions of workers out in a general strike, in support of coal miners.
4 5 1886 United States of America A bomb is thrown during a demonstration against police violence in Haymarket Square, Chicago. The ensuing police riot and trials of anarchists, known as the Haymarket affair, eventually give birth to May Day as international workers' day.
4 5 1919 Brazil 50,000 factory workers in Rio de Janeiro walked out for a maximum 8-hour working day and a 20% pay increase. In June workers in S�o Paulo joined them and by the following month they won their demands.
4 5 1937 Canada In one of a wave of strikes in Qu�bec this year, workers at the shipyards in Sorel demand union recognition, better wages, and reinstatement of dismissed union leaders.
5 5 1882 UK Sylvia Pankhurst, suffragette and revolutionary socialist, is born.
5 5 1886 United States of America Nine striking workers are shot dead by the National Guard at the Rolling Mills Steel Factory in Bay View, Milwaukee
5 5 1972 Canada Saskatchewan brings in an Occupational Health (and Safety) Act, considered the first of its kind in North America. It includes the right to information about workplace hazards, to participate in safety decisions and to refuse unsafe work.
5 5 1525 France Bloody meeting at the Wittringerhof between peasants and the army of the Duke of Lorraine marching towards Dieuze. Jean de Braubach, captain of Sarreguemines is taken prisoner, and the peasants manage to join the Alsatian insurgent peasants in Herbitzheim.
5 5 1877 Luxembourg Effective date of the law limiting the working day of children under 14 to eight hours, and that of young people aged 14 to 16 to 10 but it has several exceptions.
5 5 1898 Italy A general strike against excessively high food prices begins.
5 5 1818 Germany Karl Marx is born.
6 5 1889 Belgium The Assises of Monsthe trial of the victims of the repression of the general strike of 1887 opens. After 3 weeks of hearings, the jurors acquit all 267 accused.
6 5 1898 Italy In the morning, workers at the Pirelli factories in Milan are on strike distributing leaflets denouncing the events of the previous day. 2 workers are killed by the police.
6 5 1898 Italy A state of siege is declared in Lombardy. General Fiorenzo Bava-Beccaris and his 45,000 infantry, cavalry, artillery and specialized troops are deployed in Milan.
6 5 1902 Belgium Louis Franson and Oscar Querut, Socialist deputies, appear at the Charleroi Criminal Court accused of "infringing freedom of work" during the demonstration on April 16. Franson is acquitted, Querut is sentenced to 15 days in prison.
6 5 1935 United States of America The Works Progress Administration is established by executive order - it will provide work for millions of Americans.
6 5 1937 USA 400 black female tobacco stemmers spontaneously went on strike at I.N. Vaughan in Richmond, Virginia. The women worked more than 80 hours a week for $3. They toiled in a cramped factory with tobacco dust coating their lungs. They won union recognition.
7 5 1907 USA Bloody Tuesday: San Francisco streetcar drivers strike May 5. May 7, strikers and scabs attacked each other with bricks, guns, as United RR Co broke the strike for 8-hr day @ $3 per day using police armed with riot guns.
7 5 1974 United Kingdom Hundreds of mostly East African Asian women workers at Imperial Typewriters in Leicester were on unofficial strike against pay and conditions differentials with white workers.
7 5 1912 United States of America New York City waiters and waitresses walked out on strike
7 5 1898 Italy 60,000 workers go on strike progressing from lower-income neighborhoods to central Milan. Bava-Beccaris intends to regain control of the city but the strikers are armed, barricades erected, projectiles are thrown from the roofs onto the troops.
7 5 1909 Argentina Striking workers in Buenos Aires win the release of political prisoners and the reinstatement of the right to hold union meetings.
7 5 1857 Germany Clara Zetkin is born in the village of Wiederau, Saxony. She will go on to become a leading member of the Social Democrats and then German Communist Party, as well as organising the first ever International Women's Day.
8 5 1926 United States of America A. Philip Randolph founds the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters.
8 5 1962 Belgium 9 million workers participate in a work stoppage to protest against nuclear arms
8 5 1974 India A national railway strike begins. 1.7 million workers were involved in demanding higher wages and shorter working hours. Indira Gandhi�s government brutally suppressed the strike with 1000s being sent to jail and losing their jobs.
8 5 1862 France Seven typographical workers, including Debock, are imprisoned and brought before the 6th Correctional Chamber for having struck against the presence of women workers at the Dupont printing works.
9 5 1972 Canada Leaders of the Qu�bec Common Front go to jail for defying back to work laws during the April general strike. More than 300,000 workers participate in work stoppages and occupations that bring the provincial government back to the bargaining table.
9 5 1970 USA Labor leader Walter Reuther was killed in a plane crash on May 9, 1970. He was 62. He helped develop strategies, including the sit-down strike, that won major union contracts.
9 5 1935 Jamaica Port workers in Kingston refused to load the MV Costa Rica. One of their complaints was that they were not being paid for their lunch hour and demanded a settlement. They won their demands.
9 5 1936 Greece In Thessaloniki police and soldiers attacked a workers' demonstration during a general strike against police repression, killing 12. It sparked more resistance and eventually Metaxas declared a dictatorship.
9 5 1926 United Kingdom The Roman Catholic Church declared the ongoing British general strike 'a sin'.
9 5 1898 Italy Bava-Beccaris orders troops and artillery to fire on protesters in Milan, including a monastery in Porta Monforte used as a homeless shelter. 400 dead and 2,000 injured.
9 5 2001 France Ban on night work by women in industry lifted.
9 5 1913 United States of America The garment workers strike at Cohoes could become an international incident after it emerges that Italian migrant workers are being forced to break the strike.
9 5 1992 Canada An underground explosion takes the lives of 26 miners in Pictou County, Nova Scotia. A public inquiry into the Westray Disaster blames politicians, managers and bureaucrats for creating “a predictable path to disaster.”
10 5 1920 UK Dockers refused to load arms shipments to be used by White armies in Russia.
10 5 1900 Belgium Old Age Pensions Act comes into effect.
11 5 1894 USA Several thousand train workers started an unannounced strike at the Pullman Company in Illinois. Over the next few months, dozens of workers would die in strike-related violence. POTUS and SCOTUS would finally become involved in the strike�s outcome.
11 5 1910 Mexico During the revolution, Emiliano Zapata's peasant army attacked the city of Cuautla. Despite heavy losses, he took control 8 days later after forcing the dictator Porfirio Diaz to resign.
11 5 1917 France Women workers launch 33 strikes in Paris in the clothing-leather-textile sector between May 11 and 28 for wage improvements and the 'English work week'.
11 5 1936 France A protest strike against the dismissals at Br�guet broke out in Le Havre; the 600 workers occupy the factory and obtain satisfaction
11 5 1894 United States of America Three thousands Pullman railroad workers in Chicago begin a wildcat strike.
11 5 1911 Uruguay A strike by streetcar workers rapidly develops into a general strike across Montevideo
12 5 1902 United States of America John Mitchell of the UMWA cals for a national strike, beginning the Anthracite Coal Strike which will last five months.
12 5 1933 Italy Anti-fascist poet Virgilia d'Andrea, who had been involved in the mass factory occupations in 1920, died in New York.
12 5 1916 Ireland Union leader James Connolly was executed for his part in the Easter Rebellion, an unsuccessful insurrection against British rule. As he was wounded in the fighting, he faced the firing squad tied to a chair.
13 5 1935 Jamaica Workers loading bananas in Oracabessa went on strike, rioted, cut power lines and blocked roads to stop scabs. British colonial authorities sent in armed police to suppress the strike, but strikes spread.
13 5 1968 France 10 million workers began a general strike.
13 5 1926 United Kingdom The British general strike was called off by the Trades Union Congress having achieved no concessions.
13 5 1918 France 10,000 Renault Billancourt workers sit idly at work, starting the movement of Parisian steelworkers which will last until the 18th calling for the end of the war.
13 5 2008 Luxembourg The Chamber of Deputies passes a law creating a single statute for workers in the private sector
13 5 1968 France Workers join students in a million-strong march through Paris.
13 5 1893 United States of America Western Federation of Miners formed in Butte, Montana.
13 5 1980 United States of America Douglas Fraser of the UAW becomes the first union representative on the board a major US corporation after Chystler's stockholders vote him on.
14 5 1968 France Workers at the Sud Aviation plant near Nantes begin a sit-down strike, becoming some of the first workers to join student protests.
14 5 1771 UK Socialist philanthropist Robert Owen is born
14 5 1917 France In the middle of the war, the "midinettes" of the garment industry began a 14 day strike and won a work week of 5 and a half days, an improvement in wages and the draft of what will become a collective agreement.
14 5 1918 France War factories in the Saint-Denis region are struck. Workers call for an end to the war.
14 5 1931 Sweden In Adalen troops open fire on a peaceful demonstration of striking workers, killing four and one bystander and wounding several others.
14 5 1940 Canada Emma Goldman, the veteran feminist, labour and anarchist organizer, dies in Toronto, Ontario. A memorial service is held at the Labour Lyceum on Spadina Avenue. She is buried with the Haymarket martyrs in Chicago.
15 5 1946 Canada A six-week strike by loggers in British Columbia begins, the first after the achievement of collective bargaining rights during the war. The strike helps set postwar standards by achieving higher wages, shorter hours, and an industry-wide contract.
15 5 1905 Australia The Merchant Service Guild of Australasia became the first trade union to be registered under the Australian Commonwealth Conciliation and Arbitration Act 1904
15 5 1525 Germany Insurgent peasants were defeated at the Battle of Frankenhausen, ending the Peasant War, when workers and peasants demanded a �kingdom of heaven on earth�.
15 5 1950 Kenya A general strike broke out in Nairobi. 100K walked out demanding the freedom of two jailed union leaders, and better pay and benefits. British authorities repressed the strike and it ended after 10 days.
15 5 1935 United States of America Folk singer, labor organiser and IWW member Utah Phillips is born.
15 5 1946 United States of America 489 city workers in Rochester, NY were sacked for organising a union. They protested the next day, and sympathy strikes began, growing to a general strike, when bosses caved and reinstated the sacked workers.
15 5 1919 Canada A general strike called by the Winnipeg Trades and Labour Council brings out 30,000 workers in support of the unions in the building and metal trades. The city comes to a standstill for six weeks in one of the major labour struggles in Canadian history.
15 5 1872 Canada Workers in the city of Hamilton, organized by the Nine Hour Movement, strike and demonstrate to demand a reduction in working hours.
15 5 1895 France In Champagnac-les-Mines, created in 1894, the miners' union launched a 3 months-long strike for the 8-hour day and a better sharing of profits.
15 5 1918 France The workers of the Seine war factories strike until the 18th. Their demand: the end of the war.
16 5 1934 United States of America Minneapolis Teamsters went on strike, shutting down almost all commercial transport in the city. The dispute lasted over three months, ending with most of the workers� demands being met in a landmark win.
16 5 1966 United Kingdom Seamen across the UK walked out on a nationwide strike for the first time in half a century. Holding solid for seven weeks, they won a reduction in working hours from 56 to 48 per week.
16 5 1920 Ireland Workers at Knocklong creamery in County Limerick declared a Soviet and established workers� control of production. They hoisted a red flag and a tricolour and for 5 days ran it with the slogan �We make butter not profits�.
16 5 1891 Australia Henry Lawson's poem 'Freedom on the Wallaby', written during the great sheep shearers' strike, is published in The Worker newspaper.
16 5 1968 France The French general strike gathers pace as around fifty factories are occupied by their workers.
16 5 2003 Iraq Iraqi Confederation of Trade Unions is formed
17 5 1946 United States of America The US govt seized the nation's railroads to stop a nationwide strike. Workers walked out anyway and only the President's threat to draft the strikers and call up the army to run the railroads forced them back to work.
17 5 1968 France Thousands of students in Paris marched for a second day in a row from the Sorbonne University to the Renault plant occupied by its workers to support them.
17 5 1890 United Kingdom The biggest rally outside London to date for the 8-hour working day was held in Aberdeen, Scotland with 10,000 in attendance.
17 5 2010 China 1,900 workers at a Honda factory in Foshan, China, go on strike for equal pay with assembly plant workers.
18 5 1928 United States of America "Big Bill" Haywood, former mineworker and founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World revolutionary union, dies in Moscow.
18 5 1942 Germany The Baum group, Jewish factory workers, broke into a Nazi anti-Soviet exhibition and set fire to it. In retaliation, the Gestapo rounded up all 30 members +500 others and executed them all.
18 5 1968 Senegal The Senegalese May 68 began when students began a "general strike" against a cut to student grants. Despite repression the movement grew and eventually culminated in a workers' general strike and won many concessions.
18 5 1941 Belgium The anti-Nazi 'Strike of the 100,000' ended. The Nazis were forced to grant an 8% pay increase, before arresting hundreds of strikers and sending many to the concentration camps.
18 5 1980 Korea The workers of Gwangju, after robbing local armories and police stations, rose up against their brutal US-backed dictator, Chun Doo-hwan. Though bloodily crushed it helped ignite a chain of similar rebellions across Asia.
18 5 1995 Ukraine Workers at a factory in Dnepropetrovsk walked out against non-payment of wages in March. By the end of the day they won, then continued the strike with new demands.
18 5 1952 Canada The American singer and activist Paul Robeson performs for more than 25,000 people at a union-sponsored concert at the Peace Arch between Washington State and British Columbia. His passport had been revoked and he was prevented from crossing the border.
18 5 1853 Germany The legal minimum age to work in a factory is fixed at 10 years, and the work day limited to six hours for children.
18 5 1931 France Start of a general strike in the textile industry after the announcement of a drop in wages. 112,000 strikers in Roubaix and 43,000 in Tourcoing. The CGTU does not call for a return to work until July 29.
18 5 1979 France In Longwy in Lorraine, clashes with the police took place to protest against the jamming of the pirate radio organized by the CGT, "Lorraine heart of steel".
19 5 1935 Jamaica 200 banana loaders employed by the United Fruit Company in the port in Kingston went on strike. British police later opened fire, wounding one woman but the strike spread.
19 5 1525 Slovakia A miners' revolt is quelled with many deaths, allowing the Fugger merchant family to take control of the copper mines of Bansk� Bystrica until 1546.
19 5 1920 United States of America A gun battle between the people of Matewan and Baldwin Felts detectives leaves ten people dead.
20 5 1525 France 4,000 insurgent peasants die at the Battle of Scherwiller
20 5 1926 United States of America The first federal legislation asserting workers' right to form unions takes effect today in the rail industry.
20 5 1974 South Africa The police raid the black workers' provident fund (GFWBF) and take away it records and assets, which were never returned.
20 5 1873 United Kingdom 16 women from Ascott-under-Wychwood in Oxfordshire, England, were sent to prison for their role in forming the Agricultural Workers' Union and became known as the Ascott martyrs.
21 5 1975 Canada After police bludgeon striking workers at United Aircraft in Longueuil, Québec, a general strike brings out 100,000 protesters. Later, a new government changes labour laws to support union security and ban the use of strikebreakers.
21 5 1935 Jamaica Port workers in Falmouth went on strike. When the employers threatened to use strikebreakers, the strikers rioted. British police opened fire, killing one worker.
21 5 1968 France Workers and students formed a joint Workers-Students Action Committee to support an ongoing strike and occupation at Paris's Citroen auto plant.
21 5 1945 United States of America The US government took over the bituminous coal mines to try to break a six-week miners' strike. The miners held out, forcing the govt to grant workers' demands which had been unacceptable to the operators.
21 5 1871 France Versailles troops retake Paris at the end of "Bloody Week" on the 28th. Thousands of dead, tens of thousands of arrests. Many activists, hunted down by the police, seek refuge in the provinces or abroad.
21 5 1911 Uruguay Streetcar workers in Uruguay return to work after winning some concessions, marking the beginning of the end of the general strike in Montevideo.
22 5 2003 Korea The Korean Government Employees Union, a public workers union, sticks to its previous plan to conduct a ballot on a strike desite government threats.
22 5 1846 France Demonstration by garment workers in Elbeuf to demand the destruction of a the machines that are replacing them.
22 5 1887 Belgium The demonstrations of anger continue in La Louvi�re following the events of the 17th. A sentinel shoots a worker named Bailly and kills him.
22 5 1974 South Africa 5,000 workers strike in East London. The strike lasts until 3 August. It starts when distributor factory workers walk out and are joined by workers from 20 other auto parts factories.
22 5 1942 United States of America In Cleveland the Steelworkers Organizing Committee voted to become a union: the United Steelworkers of America
23 5 1935 Zambia Miners in Northern Rhodesia's booming copperbelt begin a series of strike actions
23 5 1921 Canada The Communist Party of Canada is founded at a three-day meeting in a barn in Guelph, Ontario. The party achieves its greatest influence in the 1930s and 1940s organizing unemployed workers and industrial unions, and in struggles against war and fascism.
23 5 1903 United States of America Some 100,000 textile workers, including more than 10,000 children, are on strike in the Philadelphia area protesting against 60-hour weeks including night hours imposed on children.
23 5 1907 Switzerland Vautier women cigarette workers strike in Yverdon following the dismissal of 7 of them for trying to create a union. After months of struggle, the dismissed workers create a cooperative.
23 5 1949 Germany The principle of equal pay regardless of gender, origin, etc. is introduced into the Constitution.
24 5 1914 Belgium 200 quarry workers start a solidarity strike and demand the reinstatement of a comrade dismissed at the Carri�re Lenoir in Lessines.
24 5 1917 France Striking bank workers demonstrate on the Parisian Les Grands Boulevards towards the National Assembly where they are dispersed by the police.
24 5 1995 United States of America After 10 months on strike against 12-hour shifts and wage increases linked to productivity, 2300 workers from 5 Bridgestone-Firestone factories resign themselves to going back to work without a collective agreement.
24 5 1919 Canada Coal miners in Drumheller, Alberta go on strike for recognition of the One Big Union after they vote overwhelmingly to leave the United Mine Workers of America.
25 5 1805 United States of America A Philadelphia shoemakers' strike was broken when workers were arrested and accused of violating an English law proclaiming criminal any conspiracy to force a collective increase in wages.
25 5 1864 France Napoleon III legalizes coalitions of workers and ends the criminalisation of strikes.
25 5 1917 France 1000 bank strikers (almost all women) gather in front of Cr�dit Lyonnais. The police dispersed them. Later 2000 picket in front of the Comptoir d'Escompte then walk towards Banque Rothschild, Bourse du Travail and the Grands Boulevards, singing.
25 5 1920 South Africa 70,000 black miners strike work for better wages. Police open fire killing 35. Employers decide to fire 10,000 white miners and replace them with much lower-paid black workers.
25 5 1968 France Negotiations start between the government, employers and unions, leading later to agreements signed at the Ministry of Social Affairs.
25 5 1946 United States of America President Truman comes within three minutes of drafting the nation's railroad workers into the army to suppress a proposed strike, but the union leaders and employers settle just before the presiden't ultimatum comes into effect.
26 5 1937 United States of America UAW organisers are attacked and beaten by Ford security men in Dearborn, Michigan, in an incident which greatly increases support for the union.
26 5 1919 Canada Thousands of workers in Calgary and Edmonton go on strike in solidarity with their Winnipeg counterparts.
26 5 1941 France Beginning of the strike by miners in the Nord / Pas-de-Calais region, one of the first acts of collective resistance to the Nazi occupation.
27 5 1879 Italy Co-founder of the radical USI union, and anti-fascist militant Alberto Meschi was born.
27 5 1919 Peru Workers in Lima declared a general strike, against the high cost of living. The government eventually crushed the strike by killing at least 100 and wounding and jailing hundreds more.
27 5 1941 France Nord Pas de Calais. The strike escalates. The sentencing of miners to deportation on 28 May inflamed the region: 100,000 miners, or 80% of the workforce, defied German military authority and struck.
27 5 1968 France Signature of the Grenelle Agreements providing for 25% increase in minimum wage, a 10% general increase and a reduction of working time. These concessions do not satisfy the workers' and the strike continues.
27 5 1919 Peru Students and workers join in a general strike in the city of San Marcos, for modernisation of the university system.
27 5 1972 Nigeria The Nigerian Union of Teachers is formed.
28 5 1936 France 32,000 workers occupied the Renault plant in Paris. 100,000 more workers soon occupied every major engineering factory around the city. A strike wave swept the country, involving 2 million workers in 12,000 strikes and occupations.
28 5 1927 Canada The House of Commons approves a limited old age pension plan. To qualify, Canadians must be 70 years of age and pass a means test. Also, they must live in a participating province.
28 5 1994 Bermuda Striking hotel workers are forced back to work by a court injunction.
28 5 1946 United States of America Workers in Rochester, New York, stage a successful one day general strike for the right to form unions.
29 5 2002 Macedonia Striking public sector workers return to work after winning a minimum wage from the government.
29 5 1990 United States of America The Justice for Janitors strike of ISS cleaners in Los Angeles begins.
29 5 1969 Argentina Auto worker M�ximo Mena was shot and killed by police during a strike in Cordoba. The result was a wave of riots and demonstrations by workers and students which spelt the beginning of the end for the military government.
29 5 1941 United States of America Disney Studios animators in LA strike for union recognition. 16 were fired.
29 5 1946 United States of America The Rochester general strike ended after just one day with victory for the workers. They won reinstatement for hundreds of city workers who had been sacked for forming a union, dropping of all charges, and recognition of the union.
29 5 1917 France Shoe and cardboard box workers strike and demonstrate in Paris. Pacifist slogans are sung and the red flag appears.
29 5 1935 Zambia Black African workers strike in the copper mines of Rhokana (Nkana), Mufulira, Roan Antelope (Luanshya), and Nchanga against a tax that lowers their wages.
29 5 1968 Mauritania Massacre at Zou�rate. Strike at the iron mines for wages, equality, working conditions and housing. The army fires on a peaceful parade. Official death toll 2 dead, 10 injured. The actual total remains unknown.
30 5 1937 USA Memorial Day Massacre: Police gunned down 10 fleeing steelworkers who had been striking for fair wages and safer working conditions at the Republic Steel mill on Chicago�s Southeast Side. It was filmed with newsreel cameras.
30 5 1968 Senegal Unions announced plans for an indefinite general strike in protest at police brutality against a student uprising. Despite police repression, workers held firm until the government caved in for a 15% increase in wages.
30 5 1915 United Kingdom Striking tram workers in London destroyed trams and attacked scabs in support of a war bonus. The employers sacked them all, but had to concede bonus anyway by August.
30 5 1925 China British-led police in Shanghai massacred 12 workers and students supporting a strike at a Japanese-owned cotton mill. The working class responded with a massive strike until being broken the following year by Chinese nationalists.
30 5 1969 Curacao A workers' uprising began which eventually brought down the government. A mass strike shut down the economy, and widespread rioting broke out against low pay and race discrimination.
30 5 1381 United Kingdom The Great Peasants' Revolt broke out in the county of Essex. 100,000 landless peasants converge on London in mid-June
30 5 1887 Belgium Striking workers' wives express their anger in Saint-Vaast and Jolimont where the R�giment des Guides charges them, sabers drawn.
30 5 1917 France At 07:00 a thousand women at the Salmson factory in Issy strike and then demonstrate in front of other factories. At 15:30 3,500 strikers are at the Porte de Versailles and cross Paris demanding the end of the war.
30 5 1968 France Deadlocked, the social crisis of May 68 leads to a political crisis, De Gaulle announces the dissolution of the National Assembly.
30 5 1984 UK Miners leader Arthur Scargill, along with 81 other pickets, is arrested at the Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire.
31 5 1899 France In Creusot, birth of the S.O.M.", the Union of Metallurgical Workers and Allied Workers. 6000 members join the same day.
31 5 1943 United States of America At the Detroit Packard Motor Co factory, in full war production, 25,000 white workers go on strike when 3 black workers are promoted to a line previously occupied only by whites. The 3 are transferred.
31 5 1921 United States of America The Sacco and Vanzetti trial begins in Dedham, Massachusetts.
1 6 1914 Ireland Jim Larkin is elected president of the Irish TUC in the wake of the Dublin Lockout.
1 6 1986 Canada In Edmonton, Alberta meatpacking workers go on strike against wage and pension rollbacks. One of their slogans is "Gainers makes weiners with scabs". There are more than 400 arrests before an agreement is reached in December.
1 6 1975 France 100 sex workers occupied the church of Saint Nizier, Lyon, refusing to leave unless their convictions for soliciting were rescinded.
1 6 1919 Germany Rosa Luxemburg's body was found and identified after an autopsy at the Charit� hospital in Berlin, five months after being murdered at the orders of the Social Democratic government and flung into Berlin's Landwehr Canal.
1 6 1831 United Kingdom The army is ordered to Merthyr Tydfil, Wales to end a popular working class rebellion against low wages and bailifs.
1 6 1987 Canada In British Columbia, 250,000 workers walk off the job in a one-day general strike against restrictive new labour laws introduced by the Social Credit government. The legislation is repealed when the New Democratic Party returns to power in 1992.
1 6 1917 France 88 strikes were underway in clothing, ammunition and pharmaceuticals. Women were more and more dissatisfied with their treatment during the war and are fighting for the �English week� and better living conditions.
1 6 1920 Senegal Beginning of a week-long strike in the Dakar-Niger Railways for a wage increase benefiting both African and European workers.
1 6 1949 Japan Introduction of a new version of the law governing the activity of trade unions.
2 6 1975 France 100 sex workers occupied the church of Saint Nizier, Lyon, refusing to leave unless their convictions for soliciting were rescinded.
2 6 1908 France 2 dead and 9 injured among workers in the Vigneux-sur-Seine sand pits, on strike for a month when the gendarmes used their weapons against the strike committee installed at the H�tel-restaurant du Progr�s.
2 6 1919 France 150,000 metal workers and 20,000 public transport workers strike. The strike is a protest over a wage freeze in effect since the start of the war in 1914, despite high inflation. The strikers also demand work for returned soldiers.
2 6 1936 Belgium A spontaneous strike by dockers in Antwerp ignited a general strike which lasts 3 weeks. 500,000 workers joined the walkout: miners, steelworkers, transport, public services and private companies.
2 6 1944 France The C.G.T. calls on its activists to place themselves resolutely "at the head of the masses for the launching and the conduct of the general strike". The strike is to support the D-Day invasion.
3 6 1935 Canada Hundreds of unemployed men board boxcars in Vancouver, British Columbia, beginning the historic On-to-Ottawa Trek to protest conditions in the relief camps run by the Department of National Defence.
3 6 1977 India Police opened fire on a workers' demonstration, killing 12. Thousands of workers from the Bhilai Steel plant and mines had been demonstrating at the police station where strike leader Shankar Guha Niyogi was being held following his arrest.
3 6 2016 United States of America A federal judge ruled that women's soccer players could not go on strike, despite their collective bargaining agreement (which included a no-strike clause) having expired. The women were in dispute over pay discrimination.
3 6 1900 United States of America The International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union is founded in New York City.
3 6 1885 Russia Yakov Sverdlov is born in Nizhny Novgorod. He will become a leading Bolshevik revolutionary and first chairman of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets
4 6 2007 Iraq Workers begin a two-day strike which successfully delays the government's proposal to effectively privatise the country's oilfields.
4 6 1912 United States of America Massachusetts becomes the first US state to establish a minimum wage
4 6 1989 China The Chinese Army massacres thousands of student and workers demonstrating in Tiananmen Square, Beijing.
4 6 2012 United States of America When National Football League referees failed to agree to a new contract, which included big pension cuts, the NFL locked them out and began hiring scabs to replace them. Bosses came up with a revised offer which was agreed on 26 September.
4 6 1862 Spain Textile worker, feminist and one of the founders of the Spanish anarchist movement, Teresa Claramunt was born. Jailed several times and played a leading role in the 1911 Aragon general strike. When she died 50,000 workers went to her funeral.
4 6 1908 France A crowd of 15,000 strikers from the Paris region escorts the remains of Pierre Le Foll, killed at Villeneuve St. Georges, to the cemetery of Villeneuve le Roi. Anger is expressed throughout the procession.
4 6 1989 Poland Solidarno?? triumphs in the legislative elections, its candidates win 99% of the seats in the Senate and 35% in the Diet.
5 6 1981 Philippines Workers held the first general strike after the end of martial law in the Bataan Export Processing Zone.
5 6 1974 Australia The New South Wales Builders Labourers Federation lists 49 'Green Bans' as part of its campaign of industrial action to protect the environment.
5 6 1868 Ireland Birth of James Connolly, Irish socialist and labour organiser, in Edinburgh.
6 6 1968 France Workers largely returned to work following the May 68 uprising and mass strike, after winning big pay increases and reforms.
6 6 1988 South Africa A general strike was declared by black unions and anti-apartheid groups. Up to 3 million took part in the stoppage, in protest at the 2-year-old state of emergency restrictions on the right to strike. They held out against police shootings.
6 6 1919 France In Saint-Denis, carrying the red flag, soldiers join workers' demonstrations.
6 6 1933 United States of America 10,000 auto workers strike in Lansing, Michigan and paralyze the city for a month following the arrest of 9 of them, including the union president's wife forced to leave 3 children alone at home.
6 6 2012 China Li Wangyang, an organizer of independent unions, given 21 years in prison for his participation in Tiananmen, who became blind and paralyzed while in prison, is found "after committing suicide" in his hospital room, provoking monster protests in Hong Kong.
7 6 1968 United Kingdom Women workers at the Ford factory in Dagenham walked out on strike for equal pay with male workers. They eventually agreed to return to work after three weeks after being offered 92% of the men�s wages.
7 6 1972 Pakistan Protests by unions start in opposition to martial law that last all month. Dozens of workers are killed as the army suppresses strikes and occupations.
7 6 1919 Malta 2,500 members of the Imperial Government Workers Union strike over wages then join the huge crowd demanding independence. Police kill 4.
7 6 1972 Pakistan Police opened fire into a crowd of strikers demanding backpay in Karachi, killing three and injuring dozens. The funeral procession was also attacked by police, workers responded with a mass strike across the city.
8 6 2017 United Kingdom Cleaners at the London School of Economics became the first outsourced workforce to force a university to bring them back in-house.
8 6 1917 United States of America Disaster at the Spectator mine in Butte, Montana: 168 dead.
8 6 2007 Canada The Supreme Court of Canada rules, in a 6 to 1 decision, that collective bargaining rights are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The decision describes collective bargaining rights as "a fundamental aspect of Canadian society."
9 6 1918 Ireland Women, organised by the Irish Women Workers' Union (IWWU), pledge not to "fill the places of men deprived of their work through enforced military service".
9 6 1845 France Beginning of a wage strike by carpenters in Paris. For the first time, soldiers are made available to employers to break the strike.
9 6 1865 United States of America Helen Marot, campaigner for working women, is born.
10 6 1918 South Africa African workers rallied in Johannesburg to protest the jailing of all 152 striking municipal workers. who had gone on strike for a shilling a day increase in pay. Radicals attempted to organise a general strike which was called off.
10 6 1941 France End of the miners' strike in the Nord / Pas-de-Calais region, one of the first acts of collective resistance to the Nazi occupation.
10 6 1963 United States of America Congress adopts a law on equal pay for men and women.
11 6 1973 Spain Workers in Pamplona defied Franco's dictatorship and went on strike. The stoppage spread across multiple industries and lasted a week.
11 6 1889 United Kingdom In Glasgow, the National Union of Dockworkers starts a strike. Fearing a loss, they return to work on July 5 but work in slow motion at the old hourly rate. It is the birth of the slowdown or work-to-rule strike.
11 6 1925 Canada Today is Davis Day in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, a memorial day for coal miner William Davis, who was shot and killed by company police in the struggle for control of the Waterford Lake power plant during the historic 1925 strike.
11 6 1913 United States of America Police shoot at maritime workers on strike at United Fruit Co. in New Orleans, killing one.
12 6 1934 Canada Immigrant workers go on strike at the Noranda copper and gold mining operations in Qu�bec, led by the Workers' Unity League. Strikebreakers are brought in, and there is no union contract until 1945.
12 6 1904 United States of America Defying AFL's Samuel Gompers, 50,000 members of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen walk off their jobs.
12 6 1917 France Women workers at the Johnson de La Courneuve factory begin a strike. They are joined later in the day by the male workers.
13 6 1919 Italy In Genoa, 50,000 workers in the construction and mechanical engineering industries take to the streets against the high cost of living.
13 6 1941 France 1st convoy of miners from Nord Pas-de-Calais sent to concentration camps in retaliation for their strike. More than 1,400 had already been arrested, shot, decapitated by the guillotine or died under torture in prisons.
13 6 1977 UK Police arrest 84 workers on the first day of a week-long mass picket of the Grunwick plant in north west London.
14 6 1912 Canada Union leaders meet at the Lethbridge Labour Temple to establish the Alberta Federation of Labour. This is the beginning of the Federation�s long struggle for workers� rights in Alberta.
14 6 2000 France Signing by employers, the CFDT and the CFTC of a new unemployment insurance agreement providing for the implementation of the PARE (plan to help return to work). Denounced by FO, the CGT and the CGC, it came into force on January 1, 2001.
14 6 1872 Canada Royal assent is given the Trade Union Act, legislation promised by the prime minister in April in response to large public protests against the arrest of striking Toronto printers on conspiracy charges. The Act states that unions are legal in Canada.
15 6 1930 Algeria First Arab Workers' Congress in Algiers.
15 6 1984 United Kingdom Joe Green dies, crushed by a truck on a picket line during the great miners' strike of 1984.
16 6 1953 Germany Riots in East Germany. Workers demand the lowering of production quotas and free elections. The Soviet and East German repression leaves fifty people dead and several thousand wounded.
16 6 1918 United States of America Railroad union leader and socialist Eugene Debs makes his famous speech against capitalism in Canton, OH, which will land him in jail.
16 6 1886 Australia The Australian Workers Union, widely accepted as Australia's oldest union, was established at Fern's Hotel in Ballarat, Victoria, as a shearers' union
17 6 1958 Canada In Vancouver, British Columbia the Second Narrows Bridge collapses while under construction, and nineteen lives are lost. It is the city's worst industrial disaster. The bridge is now known as the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing.
17 6 1903 United States of America In Philadelphia, "Mother Jones" organizes a demonstration of children who had been mutilated in textile factories to draw public attention to their fate.
17 6 1953 Germany A strike by East German construction workers expands to include 50,000 anti-government demonstrators.
18 6 1984 UK Mass violence by police at the Orgreave coking plant in South Yorkshire. 93 miners are arrested, dozens injured.
18 6 1935 Canada Longshoremen in Vancouver, many of them war veterans, march to protest the use of scabs to unload cargo on the docks. In a three-hour battle, police chase the strikers down on horseback and use tear gas to disperse the protest.
19 6 1932 Belgium 10,000 miners from Wasmes and Hornu went on strike at the employers' announcement of a 5% cut in wages. The Levant's coal bosses announced the dismissal of 484 miners.
19 6 1912 United States of America The eight-hour day is adopted for Federal employees
19 6 1938 Canada On Bloody Sunday in Vancouver, British Columbia, hundreds of unemployed workers are violently evicted from government buildings, including the post office and art gallery, after weeks of sit-ins to protest cutbacks in relief projects.
19 6 1914 Canada A coal mine explosion in the Crowsnest Pass at Hillcrest, Alberta takes the lives of 189 men, mostly immigrants. Canada's worst coal mine disaster leaves 90 widows and more than 250 orphans.
20 6 1947 United States of America President Truman vetoes the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act, but his veto is overturned by Congress three days later.
20 6 1959 Canada A sudden violent storm on Miramichi Bay, New Brunswick sweeps away 35 men and boys. The Escuminac Disaster is commemorated at the local wharf by The Fishermen, a monument created by Acadian artist Claude Roussel
20 6 1870 Belgium In Verviers, at the end of a demonstration against "the blood tax", when a worker named Gillis shouts to the soldiers "Be gentle to the people! " he is shot dead by a soldier who is promoted to corporal.
20 6 1893 United States of America The American Railway Union is founded with Eug�ne Debs at its head.
20 6 1984 Canada An earthquake kills four workers at the Falconbridge mine near Sudbury, Ontario. The day is remembered in an annual union memorial service and with calls for renewed attention to health, safety and emergency preparedness.
21 6 1881 Ukraine Dov Ber Borachov, pioneer of socialist-zionism, is born in Zolotonosha
21 6 1919 Canada A silent parade to protest the arrest of leaders of the Winnipeg General Strike is attacked by the Royal Northwest Mounted Police and the special police hired by the city. Many are wounded, and two men lose their lives as a result of Bloody Saturday.
21 6 1802 United Kingdom Parliament passes a law limiting child labor to 12 hours a day, imposes one hour of religious instruction each Sunday and prohibits the sleeping of more than 2 children per bed.
21 6 1877 United States of America Hanging in Pennsylvania of 10 miners accused of being "Molly Maguires" activists sentenced to death on the basis of an investigation carried out by a private detectives agency sponsored by a private company.
21 6 1991 Congo-Kinshasa Founding congress of the National Union of Congolese Workers in Kinshasa.
21 6 1991 France After a union campaign sexual harassment at work becomes an offence, punishable by imprisonment.
22 6 1930 Morocco Founding congress in Casablanca, of the Moroccan Union of Confederated Trade Union Organizations (UMOSC) bringing together the unions of teachers, postal workers and civil servants.
22 6 1977 UK The first solidarity demo and mass picket supporting the Grunwick strikers is held
23 6 1848 France Out of 120,000 workers made redundant by the National Workshops, 20,000 take to the streets. They form up to 400 barricades.
23 6 1848 France 4 days of deadly fighting begin in the working-class districts of Paris. Rifles, bayonets, cannons, incendiary bombs ... 11,662 arrests, up to 10,000 dead. The workers' movement is beheaded. The 3rd Republic was born.
23 6 1999 United States of America Workers at Fieldcrest Cannon textile plants in North Carolina vote for union recognition after a 25 year struggle
24 6 1929 Australia The six month timber workers strike ends in defeat as workers have to accept a 48 hour week.
24 6 1976 Poland When a price increase of 39% was announced, a strike spread across the country. It was in Ursus on the outskirts of Warsaw and in Radom that the movement was strongest. In Radom, the militia shoots at a crowd, killing 17 people.
25 6 1999 Canada The F�d�ration des Infirmi�res du Qu�bec begins an illegal one-day provincial strike, one of several this summer and one of many across the country during the year over nurses� workload and wages.
26 6 1894 USA Eugene V. Debs led American Railway Union boycott and eventual strike against trains carrying Pullman cars. Debs was imprisoned.
26 6 1917 USA IWW miner strike in Bisbee, AZ. Strikers and others were deported from Bisbee by 2,000 vigilantes w/o food or water for 16 hours over 200 miles in cattle cars.
26 6 1910 France Tens of thousands of people escort the body of cabinet maker Henri Cler, killed by a police officer during a strike, from Fbg St-Antoine to the Pantin cemetery. On the way back cavalry charge with sabres, wounding 100�s.
26 6 1920 Italy In Ancona, a mutiny of soldiers to be sent to Albania. Workers in port enterprises and factories go on strike. They seize the station, the radio station and barricade the port.
26 6 1957 South Africa SACTU launches a "one pound a day" campaign and calls for a strike. 70 to 80% of workers in Johannesburg, Port Elizabeth and Vereeniging observe it, achieving the first significant wage improvement since 1945.
27 6 1932 Belgium The government cuts unemployment benefits, particularly targeting married women. Committees of unemployed are created all over the country to organize a response.
27 6 1973 Uruguay When a coup is declared the Convenci�n Nacional de Trabajadores calls a general strike to defend democracy. Despite violent repression the strike lasts 15 days before the labour movement is crushed, activists exiled or imprisoned.
27 6 1905 United States of America The Industrial Workers of the World, later popularly known as the Wobblies, is founded in Chicago with the aim of uniting all workers in One Big Union
27 6 1991 Canada The Supreme Court of Canada issues its decision in Lavigne v Ontario Public Service Employees Union, affirming the constitutional right of unions to spend money on social and political action to advance the interests of workers.
28 6 1903 Trinidad and Tobago Malcolm Nurse, better known as Pan-African socialist and trade unionist George Padmore, is born inTacarigua.
28 6 1984 Germany Agreement on the 38:30 week in metallurgy, which will fall to 35 hours in 1990.
29 6 1981 Canada The Canadian Union of Postal Workers begins a 42-day strike that succeeds in winning a contract with 17 weeks of maternity leave benefits. This breakthrough agreement sets a standard for other unions.
29 6 1894 France Establishment of a pension system and health insurance funds for miners.
29 6 1894 United States of America Over 125,000 workers on two dozen railroads have joined the boycott of Pullman cars
29 6 1928 India The South Indian Railway strike begins. The bosses respond with a lock-out and the colonial government unleashes severe, violent repression.
30 6 1918 United States of America Socialist anf labor leader Eugene Debs is arrested under the Espionage Act for making an anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio
0 7 1943 France First issue of underground newspaper Arbeiter and Soldat printed by French Trotskyists and aimed at German soliders
1 7 1943 France The first issue of underground newspaper Arbeiter und Soldat, produced by Trotskyists and aimed at German soldiers, appears
1 7 1935 Canada In Regina, Saskatchewan, a rally in support of the On-to-Ottawa Trek of unemployed workers is attacked by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Two men are killed and 100 injured. The Dominion Day riot contributes to the defeat of Prime Minister R.B. Bennett.
1 7 1876 Switzerland Death in Bern of Mikha�l Bakounine, revolutionary, theorist of anarchism and philosopher who wrote particularly on the role of the state. In his writings he lays the foundations of libertarian socialism.
1 7 1918 South Africa 15,000 miners stop work. The police run to try to force them to descend, causing violent clashes. 8 leaders are arrested for "incitement to violence".
1 7 1992 France Occupation of the Th��tre de l'Od�on during intermission, the first in a series of actions to protest against a plan to cut unemployment insurance.
1 7 1923 Canada Provincial police charge crowds at the steel plant in Sydney, Nova Scotia, where workers are on strike for union recognition. In the 1930s, memories of Bloody Sunday help lead to new legislation to support collective bargaining.
2 7 2008 Canada After 14 months of an acrimonious labour dispute, the employees of Journal de Québec accept an agreement in principle concluded between their union and their employer.
2 7 1986 Chile Chileans begin a general strike against Pinochet's military regime
2 7 1855 Spain A massive 10-day general strike takes place in Catalonia against the introduction of machinery in the textile sector. Declared illegal, it is punished by prison terms, deportation, corporal punishment, and threats of the death penalty.
2 7 1909 France Aernoult, a trade unionist, sentenced to 2 years in prison for strike action, assigned to the Bat d'Af, died the day after his arrival in Algeria of brutality inflicted by his officers. His body is repatriated thanks to a campaign by l�Humanit�.
3 7 1979 Canada Longshoremen in Saint John, New Brunswick refuse to load heavy water for the military dictatorship in Argentina. The celebrated No Candu/Hot Cargo protest brings attention to the abuse of human rights and secures the release of several political prisoners.
3 7 1835 United States of America In Paterson, New Jersey, children from the textile factories that manufacture silk go on strike for the 11-hour day and the 6-day week. They win a 69 hour week.
3 7 1892 Australia A 6,000 strong meeting calls for immediate strike action at Broken Hill as miners' previous agreements with employers expire.
4 7 1840 United States of America Tenants in upstate New York issue a 'Declaration of Independence', beginning a five-year Anti-Rent War
4 7 1881 Ukraine Dov Ber Borochov, founder of Labour Zionism, founding member of Poale Zion and pioneering Yiddish scholar, is born in Zolotonasha, Ukraine.
4 7 1992 Togo Founding of the General Confederation of Cadres of Togo (C.G.C.T.) as �a trade union organization specifically aiming to meet the socio-economic challenges concerning workers�.
5 7 1934 United States of America Two strikers are killed fighting police, scabs, and the National Guard during the San Francisco longshoremen's strike
5 7 1888 United Kingdom The Match Girls Strike by 1,400 women and children at the Bryant & May match factory in east London begins in solidarity with a worker dismissed for speaking out about poor working conditions.
6 7 1919 Italy In Palermo, 2,000 shipyard workers on strike for a rise in wages block trams and factories. 5,000 join them in demanding a 50% reduction in prices and castigating the bosses who were �starving the people�.
6 7 1919 Italy In Arrezzo, the town hall is occupied by demonstrators against the high cost of living. Trucks are requisitioned to take the goods confiscated from traders, to the Labour Exchange, for distribution to workers' families.
6 7 1932 Belgium Strikers spontaneously set off by bicycle to the Centre basin to shut down the coal mines and factories. At Borinage, managers and employees are stranded in their homes. The gendarmes are overwhelmed.
6 7 1953 Africa 48-hour strike by postal workers throughout French West Africa for the 40-hour week.
6 7 1988 United Kingdom A gas leak followed by an explosion on the Piper-Alpha oil platform in the North Sea leaves 167 dead; there are 62 survivors.
6 7 1892 United States of America Striking workers defeat and force the surrender of Pinkerton agents during the Homestead Strike in Pennsylvania
7 7 1983 Canada British Columbia introduces 26 bills to cut public services and limit union rights. Operation Solidarity launches a province-wide mobilization, supported by a wider Solidarity Coalition. This takes the province to the verge of a general strike.
7 7 1919 United States of America Actors Equity is recognized by producers after a strike that closed almost all of the country's theatrical productions. Before unionization, actors often had to pay for their own costumes, rehearse without pay, etc.
7 7 1919 Italy Steelworkers and dockers strike against the high cost of living in Naples. Clashes with police leave 20 injured. Soldiers kill 5 workers in Imola, 4 in Taranto, 8 in Lucera and 2 in Florence.
7 7 1998 Puerto Rico Start of a 2-day general strike involving 500,000 people against the privatization of the telephone company is organized by 60 unions and various community organizations on the island.
7 7 1905 United States of America The Industrial Workers of the World is founded in Chicago. Amongst its leadership at the founding convention were William (�Big Bill�) Haywood of the Western Federation of Miners, and Daniel De Leon and Eugene V. Debs of the Socialist Party
8 7 1900 Canada First Nations, European and Japanese Canadian fishers on the Fraser River win a strike for a standard seasonal rate for their catch. It is the start of unionism in the British Columbia fishery, but a year later ethnic divisions lead to defeat.
8 7 1966 United States of America The largest strike in aviation history begins, shutting down 60 per cent of the US airline industry for six weeks
9 7 2001 United States of America 5000 protesters gather outside the Capitol in Columbia, South Carolina to support the �Charleston 5�, union activists falsely accused of causing riots when the police charged 2,000 dockers on a picket line.
9 7 1793 Canada Black petitioners and abolitionist allies succeed in gaining a law to limit slavery in Upper Canada. The importation of additional slaves is prohibited, and the children of slaves are to be freed at 25 years of age.
10 7 1902 United States of America 112 miners die in an explosion in the Rolling Mill Mine in Pennsylvania
11 7 1934 USA In the St Johns neighborhood of Portland, OR, picketing longshore workers blocked a train full of Porland police oficers. The police opened fire on the unarmed workers, four of whom were wounded. This became known as "Bloody Wednesday."
11 7 1977 UK 20,000 join a national day of action in support of Grunwick strikers
11 7 1962 Canada The road to universal health care reaches a turning point when Saskatchewan doctors fail to win public support for their strike against the implementation of medicare. Saskatchewan goes on to set the model for the rest of the country.
11 7 1917 Brazil In S�o Paulo, police beat to death Antonio Martinez, a 21-year-old shoemaker, who witnessed a workers' demonstration against the cost of living. Troops attack his funeral procession of 12,500 strikers with sabers.
11 7 1919 Italy At La Spezia workers, without waiting for directives from their unions, leave work. A crowd of 10,000 workers gathers in front of the Town Hall. Soldiers open fire, killing 2 workers and injuring 25.
12 7 1934 USA General Textile Strike of 1934 began. Workers at Dwight cotton textile mill in Gadsden, AL, walked out today in 1934. The strike was organized because workers were not receiving the pay raises they were promised, typical for workers in the South.
12 7 1933 United States of America The Screen Actors Guild holds its first meeting. Among those attending: future horror movie star and union activist, Boris Karloff.
13 7 1923 USA Carlos Cortez, US anarcho-syndicalist, poet, graphic artist, photographer, muralist and political activist is born. Cortez is perhaps best known for his wood and linoleum-cut graphics, and his cartoons for union newspaper the 'Industrial Worker'.
13 7 1932 Belgium 300 striking mineworkers leaders are arrested in an effort to break the strike.
13 7 2009 Canada Steelworkers at Vale-Inco in Sudbury and Port Colborne, Ontario, begin a year-long strike against so-called pension reforms and other concessions.
14 7 1918 Canada Birth of Grace Hartman, the first woman to lead a major national union in North America. She is elected president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees in 1975.
14 7 1946 Canada In Hamilton, Ontario, steelworkers take on the country's biggest steel producer in a crucial strike for union recognition. With strong community support, they hold the line for almost three months to win an historic victory.
14 7 1959 United States of America In Gary, Indiana, more than 500,000 workers went on strike, shutting down the country's steel mills for 5 months.
15 7 1959 United States of America Half a million steelworkers across the country strike for a pay increase in their new contract
15 7 1980 Sri Lanka Almost half a million workers strike over rising costs and stagnant wages. 40,000 are fired by the government.
15 7 1920 France Women win the right to join a union without permission from their husbands.
16 7 1986 Australia The mining community of Moura was hit with disaster when a massive explosion at No. 4 mine claimed 12 lives.
16 7 2005 Iran Co-oridnated strikes across Iran for a higher minimum wage bring many workers organisations together under the same demands
16 7 1934 United States of America The San Francisco Labor Council calls a city-wide general strike in support of longshoremen, which succeeds in winning most of the workers' main demands after four days.
16 7 1934 United States of America 20,000 Alabama textile workers go on strike at the employers' announcement of a reduction in working hours equivalent to a 25% cut in wages. In September, the strikers will number 300,000.
16 7 1953 Senegal 48 hour strike by Dakar workers for the 40 hour work week.
16 7 1957 Morocco A dahir (law) governing professional unions establishes the fundamental legal basis for union rights and freedoms.
17 7 1974 UK The strike of 400 mostly Asian women workers at Imperial Typewriters in Leicester is called to an end.
18 7 2001 Argentina Workers bring much of the country's business activity to a halt with a nationwide strike prompted by government spending cuts.
18 7 2006 Zimbabwe Nearly 300 striking doctors ignore government demands for them to return to hospital wards, deepening a crisis in the African nation's health system which has seen qualified staff fleeing the country in droves for higher paid work.
18 7 1969 United States of America African American hopsital workers in South Carolina win union recognition after a 113-day strike
18 7 1842 United Kingdom In Hanley, Staffordshire, the first continuous strike begins. An assembly of miners vows to stop working until better wages and working conditions are achieved. The strike quickly spread to other mines.
18 7 1917 Brazil A general strike is organized in Rio de Janeiro for the 8-hour day and a 20% increase in wages.
19 7 1984 Ireland Irish retail workers begin a strike in support of the anti-apartheid movement, refusing to handle South African products. The strike goes on for two and a half years.
19 7 1983 Canada Kamloops members of the British Columbia Government Employees Union begin a three-week occupation of the Tranquille Institution and take control of the facility, after learning that the provincial government planned to close it.
19 7 1888 France Strike until August 17, of the earthworkers in Paris during which Eudes, the former general of the Commune died.
19 7 1913 Ireland Businessman William Martin Murphy calls his workers to a meeting, where he warns they will be sacked if they join the ITGWU.
20 7 1919 Italy National general strike against the intervention of the armies of the imperialist countries to crush Soviet Russia and Hungary.
20 7 1899 United States of America Newsboys in New York go on strike against press giants Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst
21 7 1877 United States of America The government attempts to violently suppress the great railroad strike in Pennsylvania
21 7 2000 France End of the strike at Cellatex in Givet (Ardennes) which began on July 5; following the liquidation of their company, the employees threaten to dump acid in a river to draw attention to their plight.
22 7 1977 Canada In Montr�al, private security guards open fire on demonstrators at the Robin Hood flour mill, where strikebreakers are continuing operations. Eight protestors are wounded. The event speeds up the enactment of an anti-scab law in Qu�bec.
22 7 1916 United States of America A bomb was is set off during a parade in San Francisco, killing 10 and injuring 40. Labour organizer Tom Mooney,and Warren Billings, a shoe worker, were convicted of the crime, but both were pardoned 23 years later
23 7 1965 Canada Postal workers across the country begin a wildcat strike that leads to full union recognition and collective bargaining rights in the postal service. The Canadian Union of Postal Workers soon emerges as one of the most militant public sector unions.
23 7 1914 Canada In Saint John, New Brunswick, thousands of people support striking street railway workers, throwing stones at scab drivers and overturning trams when the Royal Canadian Dragoons charge the crowd. Order is restored when the company recognizes the union.
24 7 1941 Canada Thousands of workers in Arvida, Qu�bec go on an illegal wartime strike and occupy the Alcan aluminium plant. The federal government claims sabotage and sends troops. Work resumes while a settlement is negotiated.
24 7 1867 France Law legalizing the Workers' Production Associations, precursors of the SCOPs or worker-owned co-ops.
25 7 1917 Canada An early morning explosion at No. 12 colliery in New Waterford, Nova Scotia kills 65 men and boys in the worst single disaster in the Cape Breton coal mines. A grand jury later approves criminal charges against officials, but there are no convictions.
25 7 1867 Global Marx completes the preface to volume 1 of Capital, scheduled to be published in September of the same year.
25 7 1877 United States of America Massive general strike in St. Louis, Missouri, in support of railroad workers. 3,000 federal troops and 5,000 special deputies were sent there: 18 dead and many wounded.
25 7 1907 United States of America Trotskyist labor organizer and leader of the 1934 Minneapolis teamsters' strike Farrell Dobbs is born
26 7 1877 United States of America Thirty workers are killed in the Battle of Halsted Street Viaduct during the railroad strike in Chicago.
26 7 1909 Spain General strike. Conscription of the "poor" to fight in the war against Moroccan workers provokes fury. The well-to-do escaped the war by paying. In Barcelona, factories, workshops, stores, stationary trams, railways, telegraphs are shut.
27 7 1918 Canada Ginger Goodwin, a union organizer and socialist, is shot and killed by a special constable in the woods near Cumberland, British Columbia. In Vancouver his shooting leads to the province's first one-day general strike.
27 7 1909 Spain Day 2 of the general strike against the sending of reservists to suppress workers in Morocco. Anger against the Church for its support for the state. In Barcelona, 80 buildings belonging to the Church are set on fire.
27 7 1914 France At the call of the CGT, a large crowd in Paris manifested its opposition to the coming war; there are identical events in the provinces (Lyon, Limoges, etc.).
27 7 1944 France The Provisional Government of the French Republic (GPRP), installed in Algiers, repeals the Vichy labour charter. All unions except the CGPF are re-established.
27 7 1953 Niger 48 hour strike by railway workers for a 40 hour week with no reduction in pay..
27 7 1917 Australia A mass meeting of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers in Sydney votes to strike against the introduction of a time card system.
28 7 1932 Canada Three young boys die in an abandoned coal mine in Minto, New Brunswick. Two of the coal miners who come to their rescue also perish. The tragic event leads to the province's first mine safety legislation.
28 7 1869 United States of America Women shoemakers in Lynn, MA demand equal pay with men and form an organization, the "Daughters of St. Crispin".
28 7 1875 Switzerland G�schenen massacre. 2000 workers digging the Gotthard tunnel, almost all of them Italian, demanded breaks because of the arduous nature of the work. The militia opened fire: 4 dead, ten wounded, 13 prisoners.
28 7 1901 Australia Birth of Harry Bridges. At 19, a sailor, he emigrated to the United States where he participated in the formation of the International Union of Longshoremen and Storekeepers (ILWU), of which he remained one of the leaders for 40 years.
28 7 1907 France Raon-L'Etape. 1,050 soldiers present in the city to control 600 workers on strike for a week. The army destroys their barricades then fires on a peaceful parade, 2 workers dead and 32 wounded.
28 7 1946 Tunisia Faced with the indifference of the colonial authorities, the UGTT calls for a general strike in Sfax as well as peaceful demonstrations and marches across the country.
28 7 1948 Germany A cloud of methoxymethane escaped from a tank car explodes in a BASF factory in Ludwigshafen killing 207 workers and injuring 3,818 in and around the factory.
29 7 1970 United States of America The United Farm Workers sign their first collective bargaining agreement with California grape growers
30 7 1766 Mexico Real del Monte silver miners and their families converge on Pachuca to protest the cut in their pay. Viceroy Gamboa's envoy reaches an agreement ending their strike on 13/09.
30 7 1908 France Meeting in Draveil. 10,000 public works workers on strike since May 2 then march towards Villeneuve St. Georges. Pushing them back onto the railroad embankments, the mounted dragoons draw sabers and charge: 4 dead and 200+ wounded.
30 7 1914 France Publication in L�Humanit� of anti-war manifestos from the Socialist Party and Group in Parliament, the General Confederation of Labour; meetings and events in Paris and in the provinces.
30 7 1975 United States of America Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa disappears from a parking lot in Oakland County and is never seen again
31 7 1961 Canada The founding convention of the New Party, soon to be the New Democratic Party, opens in Ottawa. Strongly supported by the Canadian Labour Congress, it replaces the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas is chosen as leader.
1 8 2009 Canada At Voisey's Bay, Newfoundland and Labrador, United Steelworkers Local 9508 begins an 18-month strike against Vale Inco. The main issue is pay equity with workers at the multinational's other operations in Canada.
1 8 1928 Canada Ten workers are killed in the collapse of a gate on the Welland Ship Canal. They are among the 137 men who died during the completion of this shipping link between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.
1 8 1942 United States of America American Federation of Musicians strikes against recording companies over royalty payments, most settling within a year.
1 8 1837 Ireland Baptism of Mary Harris �Mother� Jones (birthdate unknown). Labour organizer & cofounder of the Industrial Workers of the World.
1 8 1977 Romania Start of Jiu Valley Miners� Strike (ending pensions, raised retirement age, more). Workers �win�, but face repression.
1 8 1990 Australia Founding of the United Firefighters Union of Australia.
1 8 1917 United States of America Frank H. Little, anti-war activist & IWW organiser is lynched in Butte, Montana. He was on IWW's Exec Board when he was killed.
1 8 1914 France The call for mobilization empties the union structures, their mail is now monitored and all their leaflets, posters and announcements are subject to censorship which remains in force until October 13, 1919.
1 8 1944 France First call from the underground �Tribune des Cheminots� to bring rail transport to a standstill by all means, including strike action.
2 8 1918 Canada In British Columbia, Vancouver workers go out on strike to protest the shooting of union organizer Ginger Goodwin on 27 July. This is often considered to be the first use of a general strike in Canadian history
2 8 1946 Tunisia For 4 days, strikes in several large cities. Colonial police and troops fire on the strikers. 4 dead and one wounded in Djebel Jelloud in Tunis, around 30 dead and 150 wounded in Sfax.
2 8 1958 France The General Algerian Workers Association (AGTA,) close to the FLN, an association formed within the CGT, is dissolved by the French government.
2 8 1917 Australia Members of engineering and rail unions across Sydney begin to strike against the time card system, with more workers taking unofficial action the next day.
3 8 1981 United States of America The PATCO strike begins, effectively shutting down air travel in the US. 2 days later President Reagan fired 11,000 air traffic controllers and broke the union.
3 8 1821 United States of America Uriah Smith Stephens born. A tailor, he led 9 garment workers in founding the Knights of Labor in 1869.
3 8 1908 France Total general strike following the events in Draveil. Across the country, not a single worker goes down a mine, the major construction sites are all at a standstill, many steelworkers, typists and hairdressers express their solidarity.
3 8 1953 Sudan Beginning of a weeklong general strike for the 40-hour week with no loss of pay.
4 8 1997 United States of America 185,000 members of the Teamsters begin a successful 15-day strike at UPS.
5 8 2011 Chile Copper miners at Escondida end a two-week strike.
5 8 1842 United Kingdom Plug Plot Riots general strike starts with Staffordshire miners over wages, spreads through England & involves � million workers.
5 8 1895 United Kingdom Death of Friedrich Engels, lifelong friend & comrade of Marx, prolific author.
5 8 1981 United States of America President Reagan sacks 11000 federal air traffic controllers for striking and refusing his order to return to work.
5 8 1919 United Kingdom Second day of riots in Liverpool during the last police strike to date in British history.
5 8 1957 Senegal Public and private sector strike in Saint-Louis against the transfer of the capital of Mauritania to Nouakchott and its consequences in terms of employment.
6 8 1977 Jamaica Alexander Bustamante, pioneer of the labour movement and former Prime Minister, dies.
6 8 1914 UK The Labour Leader, the newspaper of the Independent Labour Party, publishes an anti-war appeal to workers.
6 8 1916 Malta Birth of Dom Mintoff, long-time leader of the Labour Party.
7 8 1890 United States of America Birth of Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, IWW organiser and founder of the ACLU.
7 8 1919 United States of America Actors Equity becomes a recognised union after stagehands honour actors' picket lines.
7 8 1894 United States of America Eugene Debs & three union leaders arrested following the Pullman strike.
7 8 1842 United Kingdom The resolution, "that all work cease until the People's Charter becomes the law of the land," is passed at Mottram Moor. Within a week, tens of thousands of workers in major Lancashire towns adopted it at public meetings..
7 8 1944 Africa The right to form trade unions is re-established in French colonies. This right remains limited for black Africans in the colonies.
7 8 1953 France Unions call on the civil service for a 24 hour "warning strike" for Friday August 7th. At SNCF, EDF, GDF, RATP, Air France, in mines and arsenals, it was a success that exceeded expectations.
7 8 1953 France Unions call on the civil service for a 24 hour "warning strike" for Friday August 7th. At SNCF, EDF, GDF, RATP, Air France, in mines and arsenals, it was a success that exceeded expectations.
8 8 1995 Turkey 700,000 public sector workers stage one-day sit-in general strike for pay rises.
8 8 1881 United States of America United Brotherhood of Carpenters & Joiners of America forms & becomes one of the largest trade unions in the US.
8 8 1956 Belgium A fire in the Bois du Cazier coal mine started at 08:10. Within hours 262 miners from 12 countries were dead.
8 8 1920 UK The country sees large 'citizen demonstrations' against intervention in Soviet Russia.
8 8 1842 UK Thousands of mill and factory workers across Lancashire walk out in support of the People's Charter.
9 8 1917 Australia The number of workers on strike across Sydney increases to 45,000 when miners and longeshoremen join the action.
9 8 1920 UK The TUC and the Labour Party agree to move a resolution for a general strike if Britain declares war on Soviet Russia.
9 8 1890 United States of America Knights of Labor strike on the New York Central railroad; ends in defeat due to scab labour.
9 8 2004 Japan In Fukui, 320 km northwest of Tokyo, an accident at the Mihama nuclear power plant killed five workers and injured seven.
9 8 2005 United Kingdom A 2-hour strike without notice at Gate Gourmet results in the dismissal of most of the 670 strikers. The management is suspected of having provoked the strike to reduce its workforce.
10 8 1970 Canada Nova Scotia fishermen and supporters march across the Canso Causeway, holding up traffic on the Trans Canada Highway. Their seven-month strike wins them the right to a union, but the fish plants refuse to recognize the United Fishermen and Allied Workers.
10 8 1966 Canada Nine workers die and 55 are injured when a span on the Heron Bridge in Ottawa collapses during construction. Fifty years later, the bridge is renamed the Heron Road Workers Memorial Bridge.
10 8 1944 France Official anniversary of the insurrectionary strike of railway workers which began today in the Paris region in order to paralyze the rail transport of Hitler troops.
10 8 1953 Cameroon 48 hour strike for a 40 hour week with no loss of pay.
10 8 1935 United States of America Transport workers in New York descend on a courthouse with money from their own pockets to bail out Mike Quill, their president, arrested after attending a picket line.
11 8 1894 United States of America Troops force 1200 jobless workers out of Washington, DC, including Jack London & Big Bill Haywood.
11 8 1828 United States of America Workingmen�s Party, first US labour party, forms in Philadelphia.
11 8 1923 Germany Berlin factory councils proclaim a general strike and call for national action during the German workers' uprising of 1923
11 8 1917 UK LAbour politician Arthur Henderson resigns from the war cabinet over its refusal to allow workers' representatives to attend the Stockholm peace conference.
11 8 1933 Cuba A two-week general strike ends in victory when dictatorial President Machado flees the country.
12 8 1917 Australia The Australian government informs the people, through the Sunday papers, that "The enemies of Britain and her Allies have succeeded in plunging Australia into a general strike."
12 8 1933 UK London taxi drivers go on strike against the wishes of their union.
12 8 1909 Canada Freight handlers at Fort William, Ontario take part in a gun battle with Canadian Pacific Railway police. The seven-day strike is settled, but the CPR later fires most of its Greek and Italian immigrant workers.
12 8 1907 Ireland Police kill two strikers on Falls Road in Belfast during dock strike that united Protestants and Catholics.
12 8 1994 North America Major League Baseball players go on strike. This will force the cancellation of the 1994 World Series.
12 8 1842 United Kingdom The Preston Strike and Lune Street Riot in Lancashire, England against wage cuts and in support of the Chartists' demands.
12 8 1946 South Africa 76,000 miners respond to AMWU's call for strike action. After a week, the police intervened, pushing miners back into the pits: 12 dead, 1,200 injured, 50 leaders arrested.
12 8 2015 China A series of explosions at a chemical plant in Tianjin left at least 184 workers dead and more than 800 injured, causing extensive property damage and releasing cyanide into the atmosphere. The employer did not have the necessary permits.
13 8 1889 UK The beginning of the great dockers strike
13 8 1842 United Kingdom Strike at Bayley�s cotton mill in Stalybridge spreads to Manchester & Preston, becomes first general strike.
13 8 1946 South Africa Police open fire on and kill several black miners on a march to Johannesburg during a strike for pay parity.
13 8 1946 Canada A strike at Montreal Cottons in Valleyfield, Qu�bec erupts in violence when police use tear gas to disperse thousands of women workers and their supporters. Union organizer Madeleine Parent is later arrested, but the strike wins union recognition.
14 8 1917 Australia Seamen's Union Vice President W. Daly is arrested and charged with conspiracy to instigate an illegal strike.
14 8 1980 Poland Shipyard workers in Gdansk strike in protest over the dismissal of militant crane driver Anna Walentinowicz.
15 8 1842 United Kingdom In Manchester, the strikers organize themselves, each local assembly sends a delegate to a Grand Conference in Manchester. They take turns standing up to express the concerns of the workers they represent.
15 8 1887 Belgium Creation of "Industry and Labor Councils" composed equally of worker representatives and employer representatives, with a view to mediating disputes.
15 8 1887 Belgium To recover from the general strike lost in June, the Congress of the Workers' Party, meeting in Mons, rejects calls for revolution and votes to strengthen the workers' organization, its resistance funds, to create new unions.
15 8 1944 France In Paris, strike in the metro at the behest of the unions and strike by the Parisian police at the call of the National Police Front, which has so far carried out the occupier's orders.
15 8 1956 Madagascar At the request of the Malagasy trade unionists, at the Congress of the CGT Union of Trade Unions opening today, it becomes the "Federation of Trade Unions of Madagascar Workers" (FI.SE.MA) with Malagasy leaders.
15 8 1913 Ireland Dublin newspaper boys attack delivery vans after 40 of their colleagues are sacked for organising at the Irish Independent.
16 8 1842 United Kingdom The national Chartist movement officially joins the strike movement which immediately spread to Wales, Scotland, Dorset and Somerset counties. In London but the police prevent strikes.
16 8 1940 France The Vichy regime banned trade union confederations. The CGT and the CFTC will be dissolved on November 9.
16 8 1890 Australia Marine officers walk off their ships in strike action, soon followed by their crews.
16 8 2005 Cameroon The government concedes healthcare and union rights to Camair workers in an attempt to head off a strike.
16 8 1819 UK Yeoman attack a crowd gathered in MAnchester to demand parliamentary reform, in what becomes known as the Peterloo Massacre.
16 8 1946 India The All Hyderabad Trade Union Congress is founded.
16 8 2012 South Africa South African police fire upon and kill 34 miners at Marikana.
17 8 1918 United States of America 95 members of the IWW were jailed for resistance to the First World War.
17 8 1861 Australia Coal miners in NSW refuse 20% wage cut & walk out; locked out until October.
17 8 1919 France Important demonstration in Merlebach and rallies to the end of August. From a defensive strike to oppose a loss of purchasing power, the Alsatian miners switch to an offensive strike to make the boss pay.
17 8 1953 France Conscription orders were sent to railway workers, postal workers and other public service employees, but failed to dampen the morale of the strikers, whose number reached four million.
17 8 1985 United States of America A yearlong strike begins at the Hormel meat packing plant in Austin, Minnesota.
18 8 1927 United States of America Radio station WEVD - named for IWW labour leader Eugene V Debs � goes on the air in New York City.
18 8 1823 Guyana 30000+ slaves in former British colony Demerara (Guyana) launch an uprising as owners delayed on granting them freedom.
18 8 1944 France The CGT gives the order for a general strike for liberation, an appeal issued jointly with the CFTC.
18 8 2011 Brazil The 'Daisy' movement demanding better rights and conditions for rural women workers wins significant concessions from President Dilma Rousseff.
18 8 1927 USA Radio station WEVD, named after Eugene V. Debs, goes on the air
19 8 1998 Canada The McDonald's in Squamish, British Columbia is the first outlet of the fast-food giant in North America to be unionized. The union fails to win a contract and in 1999 workers vote to decertify.
19 8 1909 United States of America IWW issues first edition of the �Little Red Song Book�.
19 8 1872 Belgium A large demonstration marches through the central region, 7,000 steelworkers celebrating the obtaining of the 10-hour day, the first achievement of their new union.
19 8 1944 France 100% general strike. The National Council of Resistance decrees the national insurrection. Barricades are erected in the capital and many German columns, forced to fight, are crushed.
19 8 1989 Poland Solidarnosc activist Tadeusz Mazowiecki becomes the country's first non-Communist prime minister in 42 years.
20 8 1948 Tanzania African Wharfage Company employees strike in Zanzibar City for higher wages.
20 8 1830 France 3 to 4000 locksmiths march through Paris to "present to the masters a petition relating to the reduction of the working day from 12 to 11 hours".
20 8 1886 USA The short-lived National Labor Union was formed on this date and called for the 8-hour workday
20 8 1937 Canada Millworkers and longshoremen on the Miramichi River in New Brunswick strike for better wages and hours and for recognition of the New Brunswick Farmer-Labour Union. Their success helps bring about new labour laws in the province.
21 8 1831 United States of America Nat Turner's slave rebellion begins, Southampton County, Virginia, 56 slaves executed, 120 killed.
21 8 1920 Italy Faced with the refusal of industrialists to agree to even a modest wage increase, the FIOM calls for a strike in all metallurgical factories and tells workers to prepare for occupations in the event of a lockout.
21 8 1968 Czech Republic Nonviolent resistance to the Soviet invasion begins when people in Upa block a road, forcing tanks to turn back.
22 8 1950 Canada More than 100,000 railway workers go on strike, shutting down the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific railway lines. A week later an emergency session of Parliament passes a law to end the strike, the first use of back-to-work legislation in Canada.
22 8 1791 Haiti Start of slave revolt in French colony of Saint-Domingue, which ended in the elimination of slavery there & founding of Haiti.
22 8 1965 United States of America 5 flight attendants form an association to defend themselves against an industry requiring women not to marry, retire at 32 and comply with criteria of weight, height and appearance; it becomes the AFA.
22 8 1966 Australia 200 aboriginal workers walk off the job in Wave Hill to back their demand for pay equality with white workers. The strike runs for 9 years and expands to include a demand for the return of stolen land.
22 8 2010 Bangladesh Police attack a group of two thousand garment workers who are blocking a road in Dhaka to demand the payment of wages owed them.
22 8 2005 Vanuatu Over 100 Air Vanuatu workers go on strike hoping to achieve arbitration for a proper collective agreement.
23 8 1976 UK Fifty workers at the Grunwick film processing plant in north west London go on strike for the right to join a trade union.
23 8 1966 Australia Two hundred Gurindji workers walk off their cattle station at Wave Hill, a strike that will last almost a decade and lead to the passage of the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
23 8 1970 United States of America Led by C�sar Ch�vez, the Salad Bowl strike, largest farm worker strike in US history, begins.
24 8 1917 Australia The government declares that the Strike Committee in Sydney shall be considered an illegal organisation.
25 8 1925 United States of America The Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, led by A. Phillip Randolph, is founded.
25 8 1950 United States of America President Truman ordered the federal government to seize control of the railroads in order to prevent a planned strike by 1.7m union members.
25 8 1968 Russia A small group of protesters gather in Red Square to show solidarity with the people of Czeckoslovakia facing a Soviet invasion.
25 8 1989 Australia All 1640 domestic airline pilots, organized by the AFAP, resign to back their pay claim. TWU members refuse to refuel RAAF planes being used to break the pilots.
25 8 1918 United Kingdom Women London Transport workers go on strike and earn a "war bonus" but not equal pay, so they will have to wait many more years.
25 8 2012 Venezuela A fire at the Amuay refinery causes the death of 48 workers. The fire followed an explosion caused by a gas leak.
26 8 1935 United States of America United Auto Workers union founded.
26 8 1913 Ireland The start of the Dublin Lockout as about 20,000 workers are locked-out by employers trying to break their union.
26 8 1946 Canada 10,000 veterans march across Hamilton to the Stelco plant to show solidarity with the striking steelworkers.
26 8 2009 South Africa In Pretoria, 3,000 soldiers striking for a 30% pay rise clash with police, who disperse their protest with tear gas and rubber bullets.
26 8 1913 Ireland Members of the Irish Transport and General Workers Union in Dublin go on strike for union recognition. The response of the employers is a city-wide lock-out.
26 8 1894 Australia Striking shearers burn and destroy the steamship 'Rodney', which had been used to transport scabs on the Darling River.
27 8 2007 Chad Public sector employees call off their strike for higher wages after a campaign of intimidation and repression from the government.
27 8 1840 France Several thousand carpenters scoured the working-class districts of Paris to persuade their peers to abolish piecework.
28 8 1830 United Kingdom A threshing machine is destroyed at Lower Hardres, near Canterbury, England, usually taken as start of Captain Swing rebellion.
28 8 1987 United States of America John Sayles's film �Matewan� about attempts to organise a union by coal miners is released.
28 8 1844 France Karl Marx and Frederick Engels meet for the first time in person, 1844 at Caf� de la R�gence on the Place du Palais in Paris.
28 8 1913 Ireland Jim Larkin is arrested for 'seditious speaking' on the third day of the Dublin transport strike, but released later in the day.
29 8 1921 United States of America West Virginia miners marching to free their imprisoned comrades face state forces and private detectives in the five-day "Battle of Blair Mountain."
29 8 1913 Ireland Jim Larkin burns a government proclamation banning public gatherings, in front of a meeting of 10,000 workers
29 8 1907 Canada Seventy-five men, many of them First Nations workers from Kahnawake, are killed in the collapse of a huge cantilever bridge under construction across the St. Lawrence River at Quebec City. Before the disaster, supervisors ignore flaws in the design.
30 8 1920 Italy Alfa Romeo's 2,000 workers in Milan find their factory occupied by the military, the next day 400,000 workers occupy nearly 1,000 metallurgy factories across the country. Factory councils take control of production.
30 8 1965 Switzerland A section of the Allain glacier collapsed on the Mattmark Dam construction site. 88 dead (56 Italians), their poorly placed barracks buried under 3 metres of ice, rock, etc.
30 8 1907 Guatemala Luisa Moreno, labour organizer and immigrant rights activist, is born.
30 8 1913 Ireland James Connolly is sentenced to three months in prison for incitement, as the Dublin strike continues.
30 8 1913 Ireland Two workers, John Byrne and James Nolan, are beaten by police in separate attacks, and both die of their wounds in hospital.
30 8 2007 Poland A Solidarnosc-led bus workers strike defeats the proposed privatisation of the service in the city of Kielce.
30 8 1917 Australia First labour martyr Merv Flanagan shot and killed in Sydney during General Strike for yelling 'scab'. His murderer Reginald Wearne ( whose brother was a consevative MP) was never convicted.
31 8 1914 USA Members of United Mine Workers arrested in Colorado during ongoing coal strike
31 8 2013 Canada A merger of the Canadian Auto Workers and the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers brings 300,000 members together in Unifor, now Canada's largest private sector union. There are high expectations for new organizing work, especially among young people.
31 8 1890 Australia Up to 100,000 workers gather in Melbourne to support the sheep shearers' strike
31 8 2001 Canada A McDonald's restaurant in Montreal closes after the workers there organize and before a first contract is negotiated. This is later documented in the film Maxime, McDuff & McDo.
31 8 1999 United States of America Detroit teachers start 9-day wildcat strike, winning "books, supplies, smaller class sizes" & 4% raise.
31 8 1933 United States of America Italian-American labour organizer Giovanni Pippan murdered during organizing campaign of bread wagon drivers in Chicago.
31 8 1939 United States of America Mexican-American women workers walkout at California Sanitary Canning Company, winning a union contract and wage increase.
31 8 1980 Poland Trade union Solidarity formed.
1 9 1881 United States of America William Z Foster born. Labour organizer, leader in Steel Strike of 1919.
1 9 1907 United States of America United Auto Workers president Walter Reuther born. �There is a direct relationship between breadbox & ballot box.�
1 9 1879 Canada Coal miners in Springhill, Nova Scotia organize Pioneer Lodge of the Provincial Miners' Association, later known as the Provincial Workmen's Association. Under the leadership of Robert Drummond, the PWA becomes an influential force in the province.
1 9 1946 United States of America 26,000 sugar workers represented by the dockers union, start a 79-day strike affecting 33 of Hawaii's 34 plantations.
2 9 1976 UK All 137 Grumwick strikers are sacked by the company.
2 9 1921 United States of America Owners of the West Virginia mines bombard strikers from aircraft by throwing home-made devices filled with nails and shards of metal. Fortunately, they either missed their targets or did not explode.
2 9 1948 Tanzania The strike at African Wharfage Company becomes a general strike with walkouts at other companies.
2 9 2014 France 2 labour inspectors who came to carry out a routine check of migrant workers' conditions were assassinated by a farmer, the first such murders since the creation of the function in 1892.
3 9 1934 USA Textile workers strike against eleven plants in the South. Carolilnas governors call out National Guard with orders to "shoot to kill," ... which they do.
3 9 1913 Ireland Thousands attend the funeral of James Nolan, murdered by police, while hundreds of Dublin employers agree not to employ union members.
3 9 2005 Tonga The government grants the demands of striking civil servants for 60-80% pay rises.
3 9 1894 Canada Labour Day is observed for the first time as a statutory public holiday, under a law introduced that year by the Conservative prime minister Sir John Thompson.
3 9 1866 Switzerland First AIT Congress held in Geneva until the 8th. Motions are voted on for the eight-hour day, the protection of women and children at work.
4 9 1934 United States of America 400,000 textile workers start largest strike at the time through most of the US East Coast over wage cuts and speed-ups.
4 9 1936 Spain Francisco Largo Caballero, trade unionist & leader of PSOE & UGT, elected Prime Minister during Spanish Civil War.
4 9 1840 France Beginning of 5 days of strikes and workers' rallies at the gates of Paris, in the suburbs and the outskirts. Cavalry attack, hundreds are wounded and arrested.
4 9 1894 United States of America 12,000 garment workers in New York go on strike to denounce conditions in the workshops.
4 9 1920 France Bosses who refuse to supply the occupied factories see their factories occupied in their turn, chemicals and rubber in particular. The railway workers give priority to the occupied factories.
5 9 1882 USA NYC hosts first Labor Day parade; becomes the first Monday in September.
5 9 1917 United States of America The Palmer Raids: federal agents seize records & arrest 100s involved with the IWW, including Big Bill Haywood.
6 9 2014 Italy Strike by air traffic controllers leads to cancellation of many flights and "major disruption".
6 9 1934 USA "Boody Thursday," part of Nat'l Textile Workers-called General Strike at Chiquola Mill, South Carolina. Seven protestors shot in the back by mill-owner's machine gun.
7 9 1913 Ireland James Connolly begins a hunger-strike in protest at his imprisonment during the Dublin Lockout, he was released as a result.
7 9 2012 Germany Cabin crew at Lufthansa strike over pay and contracts for temporary crew.
8 9 1886 Canada The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, Saskatchewan Division No. 322, is formed in Medicine Hat. It is the first union chartered in what later becomes Alberta.
9 9 1991 Canada More than 100,000 members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada launch a general strike to defend job security for federal public service workers.
9 9 1958 Senegal In a rare public demonstration of unity, Senegalese and French railroad workers in Dakar organize a 24-hour warning strike over "equal pay for equal work" demands.
9 9 1970 South Africa As they were prohibited from joining a union, a provident fund (GFWBF) was established to help black workers, particularly in the textile and furniture sectors.
9 9 1890 United States of America Brotherhood of Railway Carmen of America created at a convention in Topeka, Kansas.
10 9 1892 Australia The first train of contractors brought in to scab during the Broken Hill miners' strike arrives and is met with hostility from local men and women.
10 9 1917 Australia Mass meetings of Sydney railway workers express outrage at the unions' capitulation to the government's terms, but nevertheless a return to work from the general strike begins.
10 9 1897 United States of America Nineteen unarmed immigrant miners are shot dead by a sheriff's posse in Lattimer, Pennsylvania.
11 9 1860 UK Dockers union leader Ben Tillett was born
11 9 1924 Tunisia Two dockworkers at the port of Bizerte are killed in a strike that is one of a series since August 13 caused by the deterioration of the purchasing power of workers. Several injured and 40 arrested.
11 9 1973 South Africa Underground miners in the west of the country, whose wages keep them in poverty, go on strike. Police open fire killing 12 and injuring 38 mineworkers.
11 9 1973 Chile Democratically elected Salvadore Allende is overthrown by Gen. Pinochet who is supported by the US. Trade unionists and social activists are arrested, tortured and then disappear. In total, the dictatorship will murder or disappear 40,000 victims.
11 9 1916 Canada A second disaster strikes the huge cantilever bridge under construction at Quebec City. Another 13 lives are lost in addition to the 75 deaths in the first collapse in 1907. The bridge, completed in 1917, is still standing today.
12 9 2012 Pakistan 314 garment workers die the same day in 2 factory fires.
12 9 1913 Ireland Birth of Eugene Downing, Irish Communist who fought with the International Brigades in Spain.
12 9 1969 Argentina Rosariazo movement begins with indefinite strike. Factories occupied in C�rdoba & uprising in Cipolletti, R�o Negro
12 9 1945 Canada In Windsor, Ontario, the United Auto Workers begin their historic strike against the Ford Motor Company. It lasts for 99 days and leads to the Rand Formula for union security.
12 9 1862 France 22 printers are brought before the 6th Correctional Chamber in Paris for having gone on strike in favor of an increase in their wages. They will be pardoned by the Emperor on November 23.
13 9 1868 Global Closure of the 3rd IWA Congress in Brussels. Delegates say it "is not the daughter of a cult or a theory. It is the spontaneous product of the proletarian movement �(text written by Karl Marx).
13 9 1913 Ireland James Connolly is released from prison after a four-day hunger strike during the Dublin Lockout.
14 9 1970 United States of America The UAW calls a 9-week strike at General Motors in Detroit, secures a lowering of the retirement age from 65 to 56 as well as an increase in wages based on a sliding scale linked to inflation.
14 9 1867 Global Volume 1 of Kapital is published. The product of a decade of research and redrafting, the book applies class analysis to capitalism focusing upon production processes, making the capitalist mode of production historically specific.
15 9 1978 Canada Workers at International Nickel in Sudbury, Ontario go on strike against pay cuts and layoffs. With strong community support, in June 1979 the 10,000 miners win a victory that includes improved pension benefits.
15 9 1920 Italy In Lazio, the agricultural day laborers organized by the Ferderterra broaden the occupation of land after obtaining better contracts for the sharecroppers. 36,000 hectares are occupied around Rome.
15 9 1955 France Renault employees win three weeks of paid vacation and wage increases.
15 9 1913 UK Over 10,000 English railwaymen refuse to handle Dublin goods in an official sympathy strike with locked-out Irish workers.
15 9 1933 Canada A general strike begins in the factories in Stratford, Ontario and spreads across the city. Troops and armoured cars are called out.
16 9 1945 USA 43,000 oil workers went on strike in 20 states
16 9 1912 Canada Vancouver Island coal miners begin what becomes a two-year strike for workplace safety and union recognition. To defeat the miners' union, the companies bring in strikebreakers and the province calls out the militia.
16 9 2004 United States of America The Farm Labor Organizing Committee wins a collective agreement with Mt. Olive Pickle Company on farms in North Carolina after a five-year struggle.
16 9 1913 Canada The New Brunswick Federation of Labour is organized at Saint John, New Brunswick, with James L. Sugrue as president. Today it is the provincial federation in Canada with the second longest continuous history.
17 9 1871 Global International Workingmen�s Association begins conference in London, though attendance disrupted by Franco-Prussian war.
17 9 1871 United Kingdom London conference of the IWA until the 23rd. Karl Marx has the principle of the constitution of the proletariat as a political party adopted in each country.
17 9 1900 United States of America 100,000 anthracite miners on strike in Pennsylvania. They are paid by weight but employers estimate that a ton can weigh between 2,400 and 4,000 pounds, not 2,000..
17 9 2011 United States of America Occupy Wall Street movement is launched with a march in New York City.
18 9 1903 Ireland James Connolly emigrates to America, where he will become an organiser for the Industrial Workers of the World before returning to Ireland in 1910.
19 9 1981 United States of America More than 400,000 unionists march in Solidarity Day demo in Washington, DC, for sacked striking air traffic controllers.
19 9 1920 Italy An agreement was signed between employers and CGIL granting 4 lire or 10 to 20%, cost of living allowances, improvements in overtime and minimum wages, 6 public holidays and severance pay.
19 9 1942 Belgium The 838 workers of the factories and foundries of Baume and Marpent decide to strike despite the ban by the Nazi occupier. 3 days in a row, they are forced to return to work by soldiers armed with machine guns.
20 9 1899 France After activity at the beginning of the year, the strike resumes at the Schneider factories in Le Creusot for "the recognition of the union, the freedom of conscience and the suppression of the secret police"
20 9 1910 Global International conference on unemployment at the Sorbonne in Paris. Specialists propose the creation of unemployment insurance in each industrial country.
20 9 1973 Chile IWW activist Frank Teruggi is snatched from his home in Santiago by soldiers. He was beaten and tortured with electric shocks, then murdered by machine gun and his body dumped in a public street the following day.
20 9 1986 Namibia Namibian Food & Allied Workers Union founded; led originally by political prisoner John Pendeni
21 9 1920 Italy An extraordinary meeting of the FIOM enters into an agreement with the CGIL. The Communist International appeals to the occupation: the "biennio rosso" is the subject.
21 9 1953 Guinea Beginning of a general strike that will last until November 25 for the 40-hour week, a demand shared with unions in other French colonies. Peasants support the strike by feeding the strikers.
22 9 2006 United States of America Domino's Pizza workers in Pensacola, Florida form the first union of pizza delivery drivers.
22 9 1919 United States of America A steel strike, led by the Amalgamated Association of Iron & Steel Workers, begins in Pennsylvania before spreading across US.
22 9 1982 France Beginning of the occupation of the SKF plant in Ivry-sur-Seine; it lasts until May 28, 1985.
23 9 2010 France 3 million people demonstrate against pension rollbacks in 239 cities in France, according to the CGT and 2.9 million according to the CFDT. In Paris, 2 demonstrations parade on different routes for 6 hours.
23 9 1886 United States of America A coalition of Knights of Labor and trade unionists in Chicago launch the United Labor party, calling for an 8-hour day, government ownership of telegraph and telephone companies, and monetary and land reform.
23 9 1873 Canada The Canadian Labour Union is founded in Toronto. This first attempt to organize a Canadian labour central finds limited support, mainly from skilled workers in Ontario.
23 9 1945 Australia Australian wharfies refuse to work on Dutch vessels in support of Indonesia�s Independence.
24 9 1963 Canada The Canadian Union of Public Employees, now Canada's largest union, is founded in Winnipeg through a merger of two earlier organizations. The union goes on to break new ground in building the labour movement.
24 9 1945 Vietnam In Saigon, insurgent workers burn down important industrial buildings, attack the port and demonstrate in the streets. The city lacks supplies, water and electricity are cut off.
25 9 1995 Canada Unions supporting the Liverpool Dockers Solidarity Campaign participate in national actions using the internet. This is believed to be the first time the net was used to organize an international labour solidarity action.
25 9 1925 France The government recognizes the right of civil servants to organise.
26 9 1917 France 35,000 workers on general strike for wages in Parisian aviation factories + Renault. The workers invent a new form of (in)action: standing idly by in the factories themselves.
26 9 1888 Canada Canada's first independent labour Member of Parliament is returned in a by-election in Montréal. A printer by trade, Alphonse-Télesphore Lépine is a leading figure in the Montréal Trades and Labour Council and the Knights of Labor.
26 9 1903 United States of America The Old 97, a Southern Railway train officially known as the Fast Mail, derails near Danville, Va., killing engineer Joseph �Steve� Broady and ten other railroad and postal workers. Many believe Broady had been ordered to speed to make up for lost tim
27 9 1913 Ireland The SS Hare sails into Dublin with food supplies for the locked-out workers. It flies the colours of the National Transport Workers Federation.
27 9 1875 United States of America Textile strikers in Fall River, Massachusetts, demand bread for their malnourished children.
27 9 1919 United Kingdom 500,000 striking railway workers call for workers' solidarity, rail traffic is completely paralyzed. Warships come to anchor at the mouth of the Thames; soldiers, bayonets, roam the streets of London.
27 9 1938 Senegal Strike by �auxiliary labourers� (Africans), the vast majority of railway workers, to obtain an end to precarious employment. The movement will be violently repressed.
28 9 1948 France After the euphoria of the liberation, the coalition government attacks the miners, reducing their pay and restoring the power of the coalmine employers. A national strike is approved by the FNSS CGT members - 218,616 votes for, 25,086 against.
28 9 1864 Global First meeting between British unions and 5 French union representatives in London to discuss the creation of the International Workingmen�s Association.
28 9 1995 UK Liverpool dockers are locked out by their employer, sparking a two-year struggle for their jobs and livelihoods.
29 9 1863 Global At a meeting in Saint-Martin's Hall, the IWA adopted the French project which provided for the creation of European sections, under the direction of a Central Committee in London.
29 9 1931 Canada A strike by coal miners from Bienfait, Saskatchewan comes comes to a head when police shoot three strikers dead during a protest on the main street in Estevan.
30 9 1962 United States of America Cesar Chavez, with Dolores Huerta, co-founds the National Farm Workers Association, which later was to become the United Farm Workers of America
30 9 1919 USA 237 associated with The Progressive Farmers and Household Union of America, a new African American union for sharecroppers in Phillips County, Arkansas, are murdered by a sheriff's white "posse" during an organizing meeting
30 9 1918 Switzerland Zurich bank employees start a 48-hour strike, supported by a local general strike by the Workers' Union.
1 10 1741 Canada Workers at the Royal Shipyard in Qu�bec organize the first recorded strike in Canadian history.
1 10 1919 United Kingdom The transport, postal workers, printers, shipyard workers unions all decide to send a delegation to the Prime Minister. After 9 days of massive strike, the government ended up looking for a compromise.
2 10 2007 United States of America Starbucks Workers Union baristas at an outlet in East Grand Rapids, Mich., organized by the Wobblies, win their grievances after the National Labor Relations Board cites the company for labor law violations, including threats against union activists.
2 10 1536 United Kingdom The Lincolnshire rising begins in Louth, England. A rural rebellion of peasants & labourers challenging Henry VIII's reforms.
3 10 1932 United States of America The state militia is called in after 164 high school students in Kincaid, Ill., go on strike when the school board buys coal from the scab Peabody Coal Co.
3 10 1932 Ireland In Belfast, thousands of workers, Catholics and Protestants, strike private companies while more than 30,000 demonstrate in the streets against state exploitation of the unemployed.
3 10 1945 Global Creation of the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) which notably brings together the CGT, the American CIO, and all the unions of the so-called socialist countries.
4 10 1909 Australia Workers in new South Wales join a huge procession for the 8 hour day.
4 10 1936 UK At Cable Street, London, thousands of trade unionists, socialists and communists throw up barricades to block the British Union of Fascists from marching through the Jewish neighbourhoods of the East End.
4 10 1941 France Promulgation of the law on the Social Organization of Professions, known as the "Labour Charter" by the Vichy regime. It prohibits strikes and lays down the principle of single and compulsory unions.
4 10 1946 Japan Union recognition strike at Kawasaki Heavy Industries. The workers win and return to work 5 days later..
4 10 1948 France Beginning of the general strike in the mines which did not end until 29 Nov. Socialist Minister Jules Moch had the Lorraine coal mines occupied on the night of 3-4 Oct. The police hunt for strikers begins.
5 10 1913 Ireland The British TUC decided that it will stop sending money to locked-out Dublin workers, although food shipments will continue.
5 10 1936 United Kingdom The Jarrow March sets off for London.
6 10 1913 UK The conference of the Miners Federation passes a motion in favour of a general strike in Britain to support Dublin's locked out workers, with only one vote against.
6 10 1869 France Work stoppage at the Crol mine in Aubin. The day shift incites a strike marching through the night with those of Montet, women and children in the lead. The army fires anyway. 17 dead (2 women, 1 child 7 years old) 22 injured, 27 arrested, 26 imprisoned.
6 10 2011 Canada A first H&M retail outlet in Canada is organized in Mississauga, Ontario, where workers vote to be represented by the United Food and Commercial Workers.
7 10 1897 Lithuania The General Jewish Labour Bund is founded in Vilnius, in the Russian Empire. It will go on to organise millions of Jewish workers, and form a part of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party.
7 10 1899 France Victory parade in the streets of Creusot when an arbitration award favorable to the cause of strikers and freedom of association, is rendered.
7 10 1937 Madagascar Despite the legalization of the unions, workers organizing the Departmental Union of Workers and Employees of Madagascar are immediately brought before the colonialist courts.
7 10 1948 France Three days after the start of the general miners' strike, a striker, Jansek, from Merlebach was assassinated by the CRS. 25,000 people march in his funeral procession.
8 10 1982 Poland Solidarnosc is declared illegal.
8 10 1906 Canada At Buckingham, Qu�bec, workers locked out for organizing a union at the MacLaren pulp mill are attacked by company police. Union officers Thomas B�langer and Fran�ois Th�riault are shot dead.
9 10 2003 United States of America Chicago sanitation workers end a nine-day strike, winning a 28% pay rise.
9 10 1888 United States of America United Hebrew Trades founded in New York by socialist shirt-maker Morris Hillquit.
9 10 1988 France Wage strike by Eiffel Tower workers.
9 10 1913 New Zealand In Huntly, miners at the Allison Taupiri Coal Company strike after the dismissal of 16 of theirs, including 3 recently elected union officials. This is the start of The Great Strike.
10 10 1933 United States of America Pixley, CA: 18,000 cotton workers strike & ultimately win a pay raise; 4 workers killed during the strike.
10 10 1910 Ireland Huge torchlight march through Dublin to celebrate release of socialist and trade union leader James Larkin from jail.
10 10 1947 Africa Beginning of a 170-day strike ending 19 March 1948, in the railways of French-speaking West Africa. 20,000 strikers mobilized in all the territories of the former AOF under the slogan "For equal work, equal pay".
11 10 1873 United States of America The Miners� National Association is formed in Youngstown, Ohio, with the goal of uniting all miners, regardless of skill or ethnic background.
12 10 1975 Canada Grace Hartman is elected National President of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. She becomes the first woman in North American history to lead a major union.
12 10 1973 Canada A strike by immigrant workers at the Artistic Woodwork factory in suburban Toronto attracts strong support from political activists. The strike exposes the role of police in protecting strikebreakers.
12 10 1898 United States of America The Battle of Virden massacre takes place in Illinois, as striking United Mine Workers fight scabs & guards. 11 killed.
12 10 1935 United Kingdom 78 Miners �Stay Down� @ Nine Mile Point colliery, South Wales against employment of scab union workers; other pits are also occupied.
13 10 2014 United Kingdom 500,000 health workers strike for four hours in first national pay strike in 32 years
13 10 1992 United Kingdom British govt announces closure of 31 coal mines with loss of 31,000 jobs. Provokes mass protests.
13 10 1934 United States of America American Federation of Labor votes to boycott German good to protest Nazi policies.
13 10 1944 Canada The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada charters Federal Labour Union 180 at Vancouver General Hospital. This is the beginning of the Hospital Employees' Union of British Columbia, now the province's largest health care union.
13 10 1903 France 35,000 textile workers stop work in Armenti�res and Houplines to put an end to 14 years of a wage freeze. It will take 46 days to reach an agreement with the bosses defended by the dragoons on horseback.
13 10 1934 United States of America The American Federation of Labor votes to boycott all products made in Germany in order to protest Nazi antagonism towards German unions.
13 10 1942 France 3,000 railway workers gather at 11 am in the central SNCF workshops in Oullins, against the requisition of 30 of their comrades, designated to work in Germany. The strike spreads throughout the southern zone, not yet occupied by the Germans.
13 10 1953 Africa 24 hour strikes in Senegal and Mauritania for a 40 hour week paid as 48.
14 10 1981 Australia Dock workers in Darwin start 7-day strike, refusing to load uranium on board �Pacific Sky� for US military use.
14 10 1976 Canada In Canada's first country-wide general strike, one million workers join a Day of Protest against the federal government's wage controls policy.
15 10 1914 United States of America President Woodrow Wilson signs the Clayton Antitrust Act, often referred to as "Labor�s Magna Carta,"establishing that unions are not conspiracies under the law.
16 10 1963 Canada More than 200 nurses start an illegal strike at the H�pital Sainte-Justine in Montr�al. They are seeking an end to overwork and recognition of their role in the health system. The thirty-day strike achieves a settlement that encourages unionization.
16 10 1859 United States of America John Brown leads anti-slavery raid on Harper's Ferry.
16 10 1906 France Closure of the 9th Confederal Congress which adopts the "Charter of Amiens" affirming that "The CGT groups together, outside any political school, all workers aware of the struggle to be waged for the disappearance of wage labour and employers".
16 10 1854 Czech Republic Karl Kautsky, Marxist theorist and pre-eminent leader of the Second International born in Prague, then in the Austrian Empire
17 10 1939 United States of America Labor activist Warren Billings is released from California's Folsom Prison. Along with Thomas J. Mooney, Billings had been pardoned for a 1916 conviction stemming from a bomb explosion during a San Francisco Preparedness Day parade.
17 10 1922 United Kingdom Unemployed workers� march from Glasgow to London.
17 10 1860 France Worker Henri Tolain calls for a workers' delegation to be sent to the International Exhibition in London.
18 10 1913 New Zealand Wellington's shipwrights go on strike over wage increases, paid time off and other demands.
18 10 1927 United States of America IWW Colorado Mine strike; first time all coal fields are out.
18 10 1913 Ireland Dora Montefiore arrives in Dublin with members of the Domestic Workers Union, offering places with volunteer foster families for the children of strikers.
18 10 1935 Canada Farm labourer Nicholas Schaack, 51, dies in hospital following head injuries received on Market Square in Regina on Dominion Day, when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police brought the On to Ottawa Trek of unemployed workers to a violent end.
18 10 1648 United States of America Shoemakers & coopers in Boston form guilds, first American workers orgs, though they focus on work quality not work conditions.
18 10 2012 Greece The 20th General Strike in two years against austerity takes place.
19 10 1996 Canada When General Motors tries to break a Canadian Autoworkers strike by removing equipment, union members occupy the Oshawa plants.
19 10 1980 United States of America The J.P. Stevens textile company is forced to sign its first union contract after a 17-year struggle in North Carolina and other southern states.
19 10 1946 France New civil service statute. The right to strike will only be recognized in 1950.
20 10 1926 United States of America Eugene V. Debs, leading American Socialist and trade unionist, dies.
20 10 1872 Belgium Creation of the miners' section of the Union des Houill�res du Centre, organizing 800 workers within days..
20 10 1913 New Zealand 1,500 dockworkers stop work to hold a meeting and submit their demands to the UFL. Returning to work, they see the scabs hired in their place arriving.
20 10 1948 France 20,000 mineworkers demonstrate in B�thune and obtain the release of 8 prisoners including Doctor Versquel.
20 10 1952 Zimbabwe Beginning of the first major strike by the Federation of African Miners for an increase of 2 shillings 6 pence per day for all African miners. 39,000 workers strike for 3 weeks before winning their demands.
21 10 1948 France Three mineworkers are shot dead by troops during a confrontation in Firminy in the first month of the Great Mines strike.
21 10 1966 United Kingdom 18 houses and a school were buried when a slag heap collapsed in the mining village of Aberfan, Wales, resulting in 144 deaths including 116 children.
21 10 1902 United States of America In the United States, a five-month strike by United Mine Workers ends.
22 10 1887 United States of America John Reed, the author of Ten Days That Shook the World, is born.
22 10 1935 France Creation of the Workers' University of Montreuil. Of communist origin, it was the place of resolutely popular collective education.
22 10 1903 France Jean Jaur�s, then Deputy for Tarn, met 3,000 strikers from the textile factories of Armenti�res and 6,000 in Houplines and agreed to plead their cause in the National Assembly.
22 10 1976 Turkey Confederation of Turkish Real Trade Union (HAK-??) founded; affiliated with International & European union confederations.
22 10 1981 United States of America The US Federal Labor Relations Authority votes to decertify the Air Traffic Controllers Organization for its previous strike.
22 10 2012 Peru Doctors return to work after 33 day long strike wins first pay rise in a decade.
23 10 1913 South Africa With 5,000 Indian workers on strike in North Natal, Gandhi publicly declares his intention to pull strikers out of the mines and seek a mass arrest, if necessary by illegally crossing the Transvaal border.
23 10 1936 Madagascar A strike that will last two years is called for union rights and better wages in a large canning company in Antananarivo called "Soci�t� Industrielle et Commerciale de l'Emyrne" SICE.
23 10 1956 Hungary Thousands of Hungarians protest against the government and Soviet occupation.
23 10 1958 Canada At Springhill, Nova Scotia, 75 men are killed in a mine disaster and 81 miners are rescued the next day. A group of twelve miners are rescued on 30 October and a final group of seven are located and brought to the surface on 1 November.
24 10 1980 Poland The government of Poland legalizes the Solidarity trade union.
24 10 1892 United States of America Black & white teamsters, salesmen & packers strike in New Orleans. Quickly turns into general strike for 10hr work day.
24 10 1913 New Zealand Dockworkers stop work and occupy several ships. No truck driver or miner at work in Huntly. The union refuses the employers' offer to extend the 1912 collective agreement.
24 10 1920 France 24-hour strike by Le Havre sailors against the conviction of the Black Sea mutineers.
24 10 1960 Kazakhstan Nedelin disaster: the accidental explosion of an R-16 intercontinental ballistic missile in Baikonur killing more than 100 workers.
24 10 1913 Ireland Members of the ITGWU clash with the Ancient Order of Hibernians, who are trying to prevent strikers' children being taken to foster families in England and Belfast.
25 10 1913 South Africa Gandhi meets with coal mine owners and other employers of Indian workers at the Durban Chamber of Commerce and explains the strike is the result of the government�s refusal to abolish the � 3 tax.
25 10 1956 Hungary Insurrectionary general strike, fighting throughout the country, led by workers' councils and revolutionary committees.
25 10 1900 Canada Soldiers called out by the mayor of Valleyfield, Qu�bec open fire on construction workers to put down a strike at the Montreal Cotton Company mill.
25 10 1917 Canada Birth of labour activist Kent Rowley, in Montreal. He becomes Canadian director of the United Textile Workers of America in the 1940s and a founder of the Confederation of Canadian Unions in 1968.
25 10 2011 United States of America Workers at Bonus Car Wash in Santa Monica, CA, win a union contract for pay rises & improved benefits after a 2 year struggle.
25 10 1934 United States of America Strike by 23,000 silk dye workers in Paterson, NJ.
25 10 1895 UK Socialist and feminist Edith Lanchester captured by her family and institutionalised for opposing the institution of marriage
25 10 1949 United States of America Longshore workers in Hawaii win a strike for pay parity with their colleagues on the mainland.
26 10 1825 United States of America After 8 years and over 1,000 dead, mostly Irish migrants, the Erie Canal is open, linking the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
26 10 1849 France Police forces seize three mines in Al�s during a strike that began on October 1. The operation resulted in the death of a miner and 400 arrests. The strike ended on November 29, after two deaths.
26 10 1948 France The police invade the Gard basin. The mason Max Chaptal, who was demonstrating with the miners, is killed by a machine-gun bullet fired by a tank. There are also 8 seriously injured.
27 10 1951 United States of America The National Negro Labor Council is formed in Cincinnati to unite black workers in the struggle for full economic, political and social equality.
27 10 1925 Morocco Creation of a professional association of railway workers bringing together associations from all rail networks.
27 10 1948 France Dockworkers block the flow of foreign coal into ports. The CGT calls on all sailors and railway workers to follow.
27 10 1997 Canada More than 125,000 Ontario teachers walk out to protest the province's plans to cut school budgets and centralize control over education. The two-week protest affects two million students and is the largest teachers� strike in North American history.
28 10 1919 Global The International Labour Organization meets for the first time, six conventions are adopted relating in particular to the limitation of working time and the working conditions of children.
28 10 1948 France The Federation of railway workers-CGT calls on workers to block the trains carrying foreign coal.
28 10 1879 Puerto Rico Birth of labour organiser and womens' rights activist Luisa Capetillo
29 10 1912 New Zealand Auckland and Westport waterside workers join the Great Strike.
29 10 1971 Canada A protest against a lockout at the daily La Presse in Montreal ends in a street battle between thousands of workers and police. When tear gas is used, student activist Michele Gauthier, an expectant mother, dies of suffocation.
30 10 1883 Italy Under pressure from unions the government establishes a national fund for industrial accidents.
30 10 1978 South Africa A strike at Eveready, a British manufacturer of automotive batteries, becomes the first legal strike in 20 years. Several workers are made redundant when they refuse to return to work.
30 10 1918 Germany Sailors mutiny in Kiel.
30 10 1998 Peru National strike takes place .
30 10 1986 United States of America Ed Meese, attorney general in the Ronald Reagan administration, urges employers to begin spying on workers "in locker rooms, parking lots, shipping and mail room areas and even the nearby taverns" to try to catch them using drugs.
31 10 1891 United States of America Tennessee sends in leased convict laborers to break a coal miners strike in Anderson County. The miners revolted, burned the stockades, and sent the captured convicts by train back to Knoxville
31 10 1989 El Salvador Bomb kills 10 union leaders at union headquarters in San Salvador.
31 10 1978 Iran 30,000 oil workers strike against Shah�s repressive rule and for democracy, civil and human rights.
1 11 1918 United States of America Scab driver crashes a NYC subway train during labour dispute: 97 die, 255 injured.
1 11 1936 United Kingdom The Jarrow marchers rally in London after arrival the previous day. Protesting unemployment & poverty.
1 11 1962 United States of America Strike at New York Daily News by the Newspaper Guild precedes a larger strike at multiple newspapers
1 11 1835 United States of America Philadelphia - first general strike in US history - for a 10 hour.
1 11 1919 United States of America Some 400,000 soft coal miners strike for higher wages and shorter hours.
1 11 1923 Australia Police in Melbourne strike against the use of labour spies?
1 11 1976 UK Union of Postal Workers refuses to handle any mail for Grunwick, as the strike at the company continues.
1 11 1956 Canada At Springhill, Nova Scotia 39 men are killed and 88 are rescued after an explosion and fire in one of Canada�s deepest coal mines.
1 11 1870 France Proclamation of the Marseille Commune
1 11 1887 United States of America 37 black sugar workers are killed in Louisiana when the militia and some citizens shoot at unarmed strikers demanding a salary of $ 1 a day. Two organizers are lynched.
1 11 1919 France Founding of Conf�d�ration fran�aise des travailleurs chr�tiens - French Confederation of Christian Workers (CFTC).
1 11 1956 Thailand 1st decree governing the number of working hours, the work of women and children, wages and compensation, weekly rest (1 day), sick leave, and the right to organize trade unions (except civil servants).
2 11 2021 Canada Thousands of demonstrators march on the legislature in Fredericton, New Brunswick in a province-wide strike by 22,000 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. With strong public support, the sixteen-day strike brings a significant victory.
2 11 1920 United States of America SPUSA and railway workers' union leader Eugene V. Debs receives nearly one million votes for Presidency of the United States.
2 11 1909 United States of America 150 arrested in IWW free speech fight, Spokane, Washington
2 11 1931 United Kingdom Miners' leader and left-wing trade unionist AJ Cook dies.
2 11 1928 Australia Police fire on striking dock workers in Melbourne, killing one man.
2 11 1811 United Kingdom "Luddite" weavers & knitters destroy machines in Sutton & Ashfield, England, which were a threat to their livelihoods.
3 11 1921 United States of America Striking milk truck drivers in New York City dump thousands of gallons of milk on the streets.
3 11 1918 Germany Sailors on the German High Seas Fleet in Kiel mutiny, raising the slogan "Peace and Bread." This starts the German revolution which will overthrow the Kaiser and hasten the end of the First World War.
3 11 1811 United Kingdom In Nottingham, hosiery workers (stockings, socks) are protesting against the automation of their trades and their replacement by less skilled and paid workers. They break 60 machines at Arnold.
3 11 1948 France To support the striking miners, the dockers of Lorient and Bordeaux refuse to unload the foreign coal but they are replaced by the military.
3 11 1952 Africa A call for a strike by the CGT in West Africa, the CFTC and the independent railway workers is practically 100% effective in Senegal, Sudan, Guinea, C�te d'Ivoire, Dahomey and Upper Volta for the week of 40 hour week.
3 11 1908 Canada The Fishermen�s Protective Union is formed in Herring Neck, Newfoundland and Labrador. The union attracts strong support and achieves significant political influence.
4 11 1908 Australia Sydney's rockchoppers vow to continue their strike "so long as one single member of the union remains in gaol."
4 11 1935 Saint Lucia Four hundred workers unloading a coal ship strike. The colonial governor calls up the volunteers in response.
5 11 1918 Germany Gr�ve g�n�rale � Kiel, le jour suivant � Hambourg, ce qui d�bouche sur un soul�vement et un processus r�volutionnaire, men�s sous la houlette du mouvement des conseils d�ouvriers et de soldats.
5 11 1916 USA Gunfight between IWW union members and Everett's sheiff and his deputies. IWW had attemped to organize mill workers on the waterfront.
5 11 1945 Canada Striking Ford workers and supporters use hundreds of motor vehicles to blockade the company plant in Windsor, Ontario. The strike leads to an arbitrated settlement and the protection of union security through the Rand Formula.
5 11 1885 United States of America Eugene V. Debs, leading figure in the railway workers unions, the IWW and the American Socialist Party, was born.
5 11 1890 Australia Miners in Newcastle are the last New South Wales workers to return to work after the Great Strike.
6 11 1978 Iran An autumn of workers' action against the Shah culminates in a general strike calling for his abdication
6 11 1913 Ireland The military are on standby as hundreds of strikebreakers are shipped into the Port of Dublin.
6 11 1887 France Eug�ne Pottier dies in Paris at the age of 71. Transport worker and socialist, he is the author of "The International" which begins with the lines: "Arise the damned of the Earth, Dispose of the convicts of hunger ..."
7 11 1879 France Benoît Broutchoux was born. He edited multiple syndicalist papers, and was sent to prison many times throughout his life for printing radical ideas and taking part in labour struggles.
8 11 1892 United States of America 20,000 workers, black and white, strike in New Orleans for union recognition and wage increases.
8 11 1948 France Various demonstrations in Nord-Pas de Calais bring together 50,000 workers, despite the bans.
8 11 1913 New Zealand A general strike in launched in Auckland in sympathy with wharf workers, whose picket lines have been attacked by police
9 11 1935 United States of America The Committee for Industrial Organization is formed, breaking away from the American Federation of Labor.
9 11 1918 Germany The German Republic and the Free Socialist Republic of Germany are proclaimed, two hours apart, by Scheidemann (SPD: Social Democratic Party of Germany) and Liebknecht (Spartacist League).
9 11 1932 Switzerland During a union-organised demonstration by 5,000 people in Geneva against fascism, the troops fired on the crowd, killing 13 people and injuring 65.
9 11 1918 France A Soviet, or Workers and Soldiers Council, was formed in Metz. In Moselle as in Alsace, this movement gains momentum following the example of the explosive situation in Luxembourg and the Saar.
9 11 1932 Iceland The Battle of Good Templars House�Gutt�slagurinn. Mass communist led strike and protest against wage cuts
10 11 1984 Global Transport unions call for International blockade of coal and oil shipments to the UK in solidarity with the Miner's Strike.
10 11 1980 Poland The Solidarity union is officially registered in Poland.
10 11 1933 United States of America America's first Depression-era sit-down strike occurs at the Hormel food plant in Austin, Minnesota.
10 11 1983 Canada In British Columbia, three months of protests to defend union rights and social services reach a critical turning point as teachers prepare to join a massive mobilization led by Operation Solidarity and the Solidarity Coalition.
10 11 1975 Canada An iron ore carrier sinks in a storm on Lake Superior, with the loss of all 29 hands. A year later, the Canadian songwriter Gordon Lightfoot memorializes the freighter and crew of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
11 11 1940 France 40,000 miners from Nord Pas-de-Calais march in the streets against the decision to abolish the national day of tribute to the victims of 1914-1918.
11 11 1887 United States of America Execution of the Haymarket Martyrs in Chicago for their alleged role in the bombing at a labour rally at the city’s Haymarket Square a year earlier.
11 11 1887 United States of America Execution of the Haymarket Martyrs for their alleged role in the bombing at a labour rally at Haymarket Square in Chicago a year earlier.
11 11 1831 United States of America Slave rebellion leader Nat Turner is hanged for his role leading a slave revolt 3 months earlier in Virginia.
11 11 1997 Dominican Republic A two-day general strike begins against the austerity measures of the government of President Leonel Fernandez.
11 11 1869 Russia Pioneering socialist and feminist Antoinette Konikow born in the Russian Empire. Konikow later became a founder of US Trotskyism
12 11 1912 New Zealand In the goldmining town of Waihi, New Zealand, striking miner Fred Evans is fatally injured when police and strikebreakers storm the miners' hall on what becomes known as Black Tuesday.
12 11 1981 Bolivia Miners at Huanuni begin a strike for union rights against the military government.
12 11 1892 United States of America Workers in New Orleans win a 10 hour day and overtime pay, after a four-day general strike led by racially integrated unions
12 11 1913 Ireland James Connolly calls all ITGWU dockers in Dublin out on strike. Larkin, released from prison the following day, disagreess with the move, wanting to keep the dockers as a final reserve.
12 11 1918 Switzerland 250,000 workers take part in a two-day general strike. 3 strikers were killed in an incident in Granges on November 14, leading to the indictment of 3,500 strikers and supporters and the conviction of 147 of them.
12 11 1957 San Marino Formation of Democratic Confederation of San Marino Workers, affiliated with the International Trade Union Confederation.
12 11 1982 Poland Solidarity union movement leader Lech Walesa freed by Polish government after 11 months of internment.
13 11 1974 United States of America Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers union activist Karen Silkwood dies in suspicious car crash while driving documents to a reporter.
13 11 2002 United Kingdom First strike by the Fire Brigades Union in their 2002-2003 dispute for increased pay.
13 11 1918 Netherlands Workers march through Amsterdam in support of mutinous soldiers at the height of the "Red Week" in the Netherlands. Five are killed and eighteen wounded when soldiers loyal to the government open fire on the march.
13 11 1913 Ireland Irish syndicalist union leader Jim Larkin is released from prison during the bitter Dublin Lock-out
13 11 1996 French Guiana The Education Workers of Guiana stage a general strike in support of high school students
14 11 1938 United States of America Foundation of the National Federation of Telephone Workers (later Communications Workers of America) in New Orleans.
14 11 1977 United Kingdom Firefighters begin their first ever national strike over 30% pay claim.
14 11 1917 Finland A week-long general strike begins in Finland, called by socialists influenced by the Russian Revolution.
14 11 1982 Poland Solidarity trade union leader and shipyard worker Lech Walesa is released from prison in Poland after 11 months
14 11 1913 UK Sympathy action breaks out in some British ports, like Liverpool, in support of workers in Dublin, but fails to spread.
15 11 1922 Ecuador In the city of Guayaquil, workers come together in a general strike for pay rises and the 8-hour day. Soldiers fire on a mass rally, killing as many as 300 people. Workers won most of their demands a few days later, but the state repression of t
15 11 1987 Romania Bra?ov Rebellion begins in against Nicolae Ceau?escu's plans to reduce wages, food etc. 10,000s of workers strike.
15 11 1995 France Start of a series of huge strikes over the Jupp� plan for cuts to Social Security and to pensions.
16 11 1948 United States of America In solidarity with the French miners' strike, American dockers refuse to load coal bound for France.
16 11 1925 Canada Three thousand workers at shoe factories in Quebec City go on strike when the employers announce reduced rates of pay. When the workers agree to submit the dispute to arbitration, they win a favourable result, but employers refuse to accept the decision.
16 11 1927 Russia Adolphe Joffe, a consistent communist opponent of Stalin, commits suicide in the Soviet Union.
17 11 1973 Greece The Athens Polytechnic strike against the military government is crushed in a bloody crackdown.
18 11 1938 United States of America The Congress of Industrial Organisations elects John L. Lewis as its first president
18 11 1918 Brazil Workers� insurrection in Rio de Janeiro of 6000 workers & a plot to overthrow Brazil�s government.
18 11 1929 Canada At Onion Lake, in Northern Ontario, two Finnish-Canadian lumber camp union organizers are seen for the last time. When the bodies of Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen are found under the ice in the spring, they are buried as martyrs to the labour cause.
19 11 1997 Canada Forty-five thousand postal workers, members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, walk off the job across the country over issues of job security, wages and changes to lettercarrier routes.
19 11 1915 United States of America Joe Hill, a Swedish-American organiser for the Industrial Workers of the World, is framed and executed for murder in Utah.
19 11 1913 Ireland The battlelines harden in the Dublin Lockout as James Connolly tells a meeting that �any man who means in future to become a member of the Transport Workers Union must be prepared to enrol himself in the Citizen Army.'
20 11 1918 France A "soviet" is set up in the town of Petite-Rosselle (Alsace) and elects delegates from among the minors.
20 11 1896 United States of America Rose Pesotta born. Anarchist labour activist & only woman on board of Intl Ladies� Garment Workers Union (ILGWU).
20 11 1936 Spain Buenaventura Durruti, a leader of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist union, the CNT, dies fighting in Madrid during the early months of the Spanish Civil War
21 11 2009 Iraq Leather workers in the Federation of Workers' Councils and Unions of Iraq win their strike for back pay from the government
21 11 1910 Brazil Black sailors on a Brazilian warship, the Minas Geraes, strike in response to the public whipping of one of their comrades.
21 11 1917 France Strike by insurance employees in the Paris region demanding an end to the war.
22 11 1900 UK 2,800 workers at the Penrhyn quarry in Snowdonia, Wales, walk off the job over pay and union recognition. The strike last a staggering three years, one of the longest industrial disputes in British history.
22 11 2000 Canada Workers at a McDonald's restaurant in Montreal gain union recognition.
22 11 2013 China The explosion of an oil pipeline in the port of Qingdao kills 47 people, mostly workers trying to stop a leak.
23 11 1935 Caribbean George McIntosh is arrested for treason for his role in the labour rebellion on the island of St. Vincent.
23 11 1921 Canada A Maternity Protection Act, introduced by a labour member, is enacted in British Columbia. It allows women to apply for six weeks' unpaid leave before giving birth. It also prohibits the employment of mothers for six weeks after.
24 11 1968 France De Gaulle proclaims "It is the end of processions and exhibitions". Immediately, the workers of Renault, of the Assistance publique, the steelworkers of Bordeaux, demonstrate for their demands. Wildcat strikes at Renault and Peugeot.
24 11 2010 Portugal The first general strike against government austerity policies starts.
24 11 1955 USA AFL and CIO merge to form AFL-CIO
24 11 1995 France A general strike in France begins the three-week strike wave which will force Alain Juppe's government to drop its pension reform plans.
24 11 2012 Bangladesh 112 garment workers die in a fire at the Tazreen Fashions factory in Dhaka.
25 11 1940 Netherlands Students at Delft College and Leiden University strike in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands, in support of sacked Jewish academics.
26 11 1913 United States of America Wobblies Joe Ettor Arturo Giovannitti and Joseph Caruso acquitted for murdering picket Anna LoPizzo during the Lawrence textile workers strike.
26 11 1913 New Zealand Christchurch paper boys strike local newspapers to press their demand for increased wages.
27 11 1884 United States of America Anarchist A.R. Parsons addresses a Thanksgiving Day hunger march in Chicago.
27 11 1989 Czech Republic Workers stage a two hour general strike as the culmination of a series of protests known as the 'Velvet Revolution.'
27 11 1945 Congo-Kinshasa Strike by workers at the Colonial Transport Office in Lubumbashi for an improvement in wages. The repression left 7 dead.
27 11 1974 France 43 days postal workers strike wins the tenure of 6,000 casual workers, retirement at 55, improvement in compensation premiums and career development + a halt to the privatization of telecommunications.
28 11 1908 United States of America 154 coal miners die in an explosion in Marianna, Pennsylvania. Engineer and Superintendent Beeson informs newspapers that he inspected it a few minutes before the explosion and found it in perfect condition.
28 11 2004 China A fire in a coal mine in Chengjiashan, Shaanxi province, kills 166 workers.
28 11 1820 Germany Friedrich Engels is born in Wuppertal, Germany. He will become the most famous collaborator of Karl Marx.
28 11 1913 Ireland Seafarers Union leader Havelock Wilson negotiates a return to work for his Dublin members, without consulting the ITGWU/
28 11 1984 United Kingdom TUC General Council seeks talks with government over British Miners' strike.
29 11 1946 Indonesia The All Indonesia Centre of Labour Organizations (SOBSI) is founded in Jakarta, calling for workers unity and socialism.
29 11 1948 France The Great Miners' Strike ends, the workers return to the mines.
29 11 1980 United States of America Dorothy Day, suffragist, Christian anarchist, and founder of the Catholic Worker movement, dies today in New York City aged 83.
29 11 1849 Australia Chartist leader William Cuffay arrives in Australia, having been transported from Britain after his treason trial
30 11 2011 UK Millions of public sector workers join the biggest single strike day since 1926, against the government's pension reforms.
30 11 1827 France The Lyon Mutual Aid Society, founded by Jacques Lacombe, is authorized by the mayor.
30 11 1944 Senegal Mutiny of 1,300 Black soldiers at the Thiaroye camp, near Dakar, after it was announced that they would not receive their wages. They demand equality with the White soldiers. 3-400 die on 1944-12-01 when White soldiers attack the camp.
30 11 1975 Portugal Construction workers win a 44% wage increase after a strike as the Carnation Revolution winds-down..
30 11 1951 United States of America Over 12,000 insurance agents strike in 35 states and Washington DC against the Prudential Insurance Company
30 11 1930 United States of America Death of Mother Jones (Mary Harris Jones). Considered "the most dangerous woman in America" by politicians and employers. Founding member of IWW, organized steel, railroad, textile, mine workers, and women. Crusaded against child labor.
1 12 1955 United States of America Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a bus, sparking the Montgomery bus boycott.
1 12 1997 France Committees of the unemployed occupy Assedic branches and ANPEs in the provinces and in Paris demanding a reassessment of social minima. The movement will continue until June 1998.
1 12 1944 Senegal In the early hours of the morning French troops attack the unarmed African troops in Thiaroye with machine guns. The mutineers had demanded payment of their salaries and equality with White soldiers. 3 to 400 die.
1 12 1948 Australia The long ACTU-led campaign to win more time off for workers led to the imposition of the 40-hour work week and the 2-day weekend.
1 12 1946 United States of America 130,000 Oakland, USA workers go on general strike.
2 12 1939 Finland The Central Organisation of Finnish Trade Unions proclaims that Finnish workers will take up arms against invasion by the USSR.
2 12 1913 Ireland The first group of ITGWU dockers returns to work from their strike in support of the Dublin lockout.
3 12 1866 United States of America The 10-hour day comes after a strike in the textiles industry in Fall River, Massachusetts.
3 12 1924 Tunisia Constitution of the CGTT, the first national trade union organization, is drafted by Mohamed Ali Hammi.
3 12 1946 United States of America Department store salespeople and demonstrators in Oakland, California call a general strike.
3 12 1984 India Bhopal chemical disaster, leading to hundreds of deaths.
4 12 2007 South Africa The first ever nation-wide miner's strike. A one-day stoppage by the National Union of Mineworkers over working conditions and safety.
4 12 1970 United States of America Cesar Chavez sentenced to 20 days in jail for not calling off United Farm Workers boycott of lettuce grower Bud Antle Inc.
4 12 1919 South Africa Called by the Cape Town Federation of Professions, workers refuse to touch food exports in protest against excessive price increases.
4 12 1940 Congo-Kinshasa Strike at the Union Mini�re du Haut Katanga at Lubumbashi for an increase of 50 cents per day. Colonial police and troops kill 60. Hundreds wounded. The next day, when returning to work, the UMHK increased the salary by 1.50 Fr per day.
5 12 1952 Tunisia Farhat Hached, leader of the UGTT, is assassinated near Tunis on the orders of the colonialist French state.
5 12 1981 New Zealand 7 women workers end a 96 day occupation of a garment factory in Levin. The workers had been demanding redundancy pay. They didn’t win their immediate fight, but they did win redundancy pay in the next industrial award.
5 12 1955 United States of America The two main union federations in the USA merge to form the AFL-CIO, electing George Meany as president,
6 12 1907 United States of America The worst mining disaster in American history occurs when an explosion in a Monongah mine in West Virginia kills 361 miners.
6 12 1917 Canada Wartime miscalculations and naval mismanagement cause unprecedented devastation for working-class neighborhoods in Halifax, Nova Scotia. When two ships collide in the harbour, one of them loaded with tons of explosives, almost 2,000 people are killed.
6 12 1928 Colombia The government uses military to suppress a strike by United Fruit Company workers, resulting in unknown number of deaths.
6 12 1921 Canada J. S. Woodsworth, a Methodist minister arrested during the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, is elected as the Labour Member of Parliament for Winnipeg Centre. Re-elected five times, he is a founder, in 1932, of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.
7 12 1929 Fiji Teachers Union representing elementary & secondary education teachers is founded.
7 12 1918 United Kingdom 100,000 textile workers begin their strike in Lancashire.
7 12 1994 France 1.75 million workers protest during a series of general strikes against gov cuts & exploitation, shutting down country.
7 12 1896 United States of America In Chicago, 11 activists found the National Union of Steam Engineers of America; the forerunner of International Union of Operating Engineers.
7 12 1970 Canada The Royal Commission on the Status of Women releases its report. Many of the 167 recommendations relate to the status of women in the workplace, including pay equity and access to childcare, education and training.
7 12 1905 Russia A general strike begins in Moscow that will last ten days and develop into an unsuccessful armed uprising: the 1905 revolution
7 12 2006 Egypt Women Workers at Misr textile factory in Mahalla, Egypt walk off the job in a strike for a bonus promised by the government.
8 12 1955 Tunisia Following the assassination of Farhat Hached, a general strike by workers' forces is called in Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia.
8 12 1989 Europe The European Council adopts the "Community Charter of the Fundamental Social Rights of Workers": pay equity, freedom of association, collective bargaining, equal treatment between men and women, etc.
8 12 1907 Chile The government orders the military to massacre thousands of striking workers in the flourishing saltpeter industry in northern Chile.
8 12 1916 United States of America Bernice Fisher born. US civil rights activist, union organizer, original founder of Congress of Racial Equality.
8 12 2001 United States of America 230 jailed teachers in Middletown Township, NJ, ordered freed after agreement to end 9day strike & enter mediation.
8 12 1908 Ireland James Larkin suspended from Dock Union organisers role by union leadership trying to curb his militancy.
8 12 1882 United States of America Birthday of Thomas Joseph "Tom" Mooney was an American political activist and labor leader, who was convicted with Warren K. Billings of the San Francisco Preparedness Day Bombing of 1916.
8 12 1886 United States of America The American Federation of Labor (AFL) is founded by 26 craft unions. Samuel Gompers is elected president.
9 12 1913 UK A Special Delegate Conference of the TUC votes overwhelmingly against calling sympathetic strike action to aid locked-out workers in Dublin.
9 12 1910 Canada Methane gas explodes in the Bellevue, Alberta coal mine in the Crowsnest Pass. The union had warned against gas accumulations more than once that year. There are seventeen survivors and thirty-one casualties, including one rescuer.
9 12 1925 Spain Pablo Iglesias dies. Known as father of Spanish socialism: founded Socialist Workers� Party (PSOE) & UGT union.
10 12 1907 Chile A general strike beings in Tarapac� Province, the start of the 18 Pence Strike (la huelga de los 18 peniques). The Chilean army massacres over 2,000 strikers & their families on 21st Dec.
10 12 1983 Poland Lech Walesa, leader of the Solidarity union in Poland, wins the Nobel Peace Prize. His wife Danuta accepts on his behalf.
10 12 1948 Global The UN adopts the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
10 12 1956 Hungary General strike begins in Hungary.
11 12 1956 Hungary Arrest of Sandor Racz, president of the central workers' council in Budapest.
11 12 1875 Belgium The mounted gendarmerie invades the central region, 7,000 miners and their families are on strike following the announcement of a 20% wage cut.
11 12 1877 Switzerland La premi�re loi f�d�rale sur les fabriques instaure la journ�e de onze heures et interdit de faire travailler des enfants.
11 12 1951 United States of America A build-up of coal dust causes an explosion at the New Orient mine in West Frankfort, Illinois. 159 dead. 10 days earlier, new extraction techniques had been approved by state authorities.
11 12 1984 Canada The United Auto Workers Canadian Council decides to separate from the international union and form UAW-Canada, later the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW).
12 12 1964 France 9 million workers participate in a public sector strike against the de Gaulle government.
12 12 1943 Madagascar After the liberation at the end of 1942, the Union des Syndicats CGT was reconstituted on a unitary basis with Dr Joseph Ravaohangy Andrianavalona and Pierre Boiteau as General Secretaries.
12 12 1960 Belgium The CGSP calls for an indefinite strike from December 20, the date of the opening in the Chamber for debate on the law which aims to increase the tax burden on individuals and reduce social security guarantees.
12 12 1970 Poland At the announcement of a 10-30% price hike on basic foodstuffs and other consumer goods, workers at the Gdansk shipyards decide to go on strike.
12 12 1995 France 2 million people in the street shouting "All together!" against the Jupp� plan to reform pensions and social security.
12 12 1920 Israel The Histadrut - Israel's national trade union centre - is established in Haifa.
13 12 1924 USA Samuel Gompers, the cigarmaker who's the reason you work only 8 hours a day, dies. Rolling cigars doesn't require too much thought, so Samuel Gompers had the mental leisure to contemplate economic issues.
13 12 1981 Poland General Wojciech Jaruzelski declares martial law in Poland in an attempt to stop political opposition led by the Solidarity union. 1000s of activists imprisoned.
13 12 1889 Belgium Law prohibiting night work for children under 16 and women under 21.
13 12 1971 Namibia 6,000 Black workers in what what was then South West Africa struck against the apartheid forced contract work system imposed by South Africa.
14 12 1995 United States of America Boeing machinists in the US win a pay rise and an imporved health plan after a 69 day strike.
14 12 1852 United States of America American Socialist Daniel De Leon born. Trade union organiser, journalist and Marxist theoretician who died in 1914.
14 12 1992 Poland 300000 coal miners strike in Poland over low wages & losses of 180000 jobs.
14 12 1988 Spain 24 hour General Strike by UGT and CCOO unions.
14 12 1965 Canada A small group of women workers at Tilco Plastics in Peterborough, Ontario, go on strike for a union contract, only to face strikebreakers and court injunctions against picketing. The strike is lost but leads to the abolition of ex parte injunctions.
15 12 1882 Australia Tailoresses' Association of Melbourne, Australia's first women's trade union, established.
15 12 1941 United States of America 8 days after the Pearl Harbor attack, the AFL pledged not to organise any strikes in factories linked to national defence for the duration of World War II.
15 12 1952 Africa The French National Assembly votes on the Overseas Labor Code following the social unrest organized by the Trade Union Confederation of Dakar during the month of November.
15 12 1970 Poland Beginning of demonstrations and street fights in Slupsk and Elblag. Constitution of a central strike committee, bringing together workers from Gdansk, Gdynia and Sopot.
15 12 1995 France The government withdraws its pension reform plan but maintains its reform of Social Security. The "defence of social gains" won.
15 12 1921 United States of America The Kansas National Guard is ordered to quell a protest by women, the "Army of the Amazons" going from mine to mine to dissuade non-strikers from taking their spouses' jobs in the Pittsburgh mines.
16 12 2011 Kazakhstan Massacre of striking oil workers in Zhanaozen.
16 12 1930 Spain A general strike begins the revolution that will overthrow the monarchy and replace it with the Second Spanish Republic.
16 12 1912 France The CGT launches a one day general strike against war, with protests involving 600,000 workers.
16 12 1970 Poland Govt sends in military to pacify coastal cities where workers are striking over high prices. They shoot striking shipyard workers.
16 12 1951 United States of America The Bagel Bakers' Union observes a strike of good faith in 34 factories in New York demanding better health and safety conditions and sick leave.
16 12 1977 United States of America Eight cashiers at a bank in Willmar, Minnesota, start first strike against a bank for equal pay. They earned half the salaries of their male colleagues.
17 12 1919 South Africa Cape Town's ICU and IWA join the inflation strike and receive support from white workers and the National Union of Railway and Port Employees. The police arrest the black strikers.
17 12 1970 Poland Beginning of demonstrations and street fights in Szczecin. General strike throughout the city. Constitution of a central strike committee, which takes all power in the city. A state of emergency is established throughout the country.
17 12 1970 Poland In Gdynia, Poland soldiers fire at workers emerging from trains, killing dozens.
17 12 1918 Australia A march of members of the Australian Workers Union forces the resignation of the Administrator of the Northern Territory, John Gilruth.
18 12 2010 Tunisia Anti-government protests, lead by the UGTT, signal the beginning of the Arab Spring.
18 12 1994 Indonesia Muchtac Pakpahan, leader of independent Prosperity Labor Union imprisoned for allegedly inciting riots, later his sentence extended to four years.
18 12 1830 United Kingdom Trial of �Swing Rioters� from south and east of England begins. They fought for better wages, jobs and against the Poor Laws.
19 12 1945 Canada The historic 99-day strike at Ford in Windsor, Ontario ends with an agreement to have Supreme Court Justice Ivan C. Rand arbitrate a new collective agreement. His decision leads to adoption of the Rand Formula for union security.
19 12 1995 South Africa Two hour stoppage by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) against privatisation.
19 12 1983 United States of America Greyhound bus strike ends when members of Amalgamated Transit Union ratify a contract that slashes wages & benefits by 15%
19 12 1907 United States of America A group of 239 coal miners die during a mine explosion in Jacobs Creek, Pennsylvania.
19 12 1947 France Creation of the CGT-Force Ouvri�re whose leaders wish to preserve their neutrality vis-�-vis the government, employers and especially the Communist Party.
20 12 1906 United States of America Arrival of the first group of 15 Filipino farm workers recruited by the Sugar Planters Association. By 1932, there will be more than 100,000 Filipinos working in Hawaii's plantations.
20 12 1960 Belgium In Antwerp, the lock keepers paralyzed the port, the dockers were on strike, in Charleroi 10,000 ACEC workers left the workshops to go to disengage the other factories, in Li�ge, the strike began in the steelworks.
20 12 2005 United States of America Thousands of New York public transport workers are going into what they think is a 48-hour strike. Declared illegal, union is fined $ 2.5 million and the president receives 10 days in prison.
20 12 2001 Canada In a union appeal against an Ontario law, the Supreme Court of Canada rules that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects the right of agricultural workers to trade unionism and collective bargaining.
21 12 1960 Belgium After the call on the 20th, starting today all large employers are hit by the general strike by Flemish workers, including the decisive sectors of Antwerp and Ghent.
21 12 1916 Australia The Wobblies (Industrial Workers of the World) are outlawed.
21 12 1907 Chile Santa Mar�a School massacre in Iquique Army against striking saltpeter miners, their wives & children. 2000+ die.
21 12 1910 United Kingdom In the second worst mining accident in England, an underground explosion at the Hulton Bank Colliery No. 3 Pit killed 344 people
21 12 1919 United States of America Emma Goldman is deported to Russia as part of a post-war crackdown on union and left-wing activists.
21 12 1977 United Kingdom Firemen jeer TUC's pay snub.
21 12 1916 United States of America Emma Tenayuca, Mexican-American labour leader, is born.
22 12 1945 Senegal Workers in Dakar begin a strike for higher wages which will inspire the workers' movement across West Africa.
22 12 1913 Ireland Over �9000 worth of food arrives in Dublin from the TUC, for families of locked-out workers to survive Christmas.
22 12 1972 France Law on gender pay equity takes effect.
22 12 1890 United Kingdom 9000 from three Scottish railway companies strike for pay and conditions, including 10 hour day. Lasted over a month and forced parliamentary debate on hours in railway industry.
23 12 2010 United Kingdom Death of Jayaben Desai the leading figure in the strikers in the Grunwick strike of mainly Asian women in London in 1976.
23 12 1970 Poland Responding to the general strike the government shuffles the cabinet and "releases" 7 billion zlotys to increase wages and pensions.
23 12 1964 Canada Unionized printers at the daily La Presse in Montréal reach a settlement after a 214-day lockout caused by their concerns over the introduction of new printing technology.
23 12 1908 United States of America AFL officers are found in contempt of court for urging a labor boycott of Buck's Stove and Range Co. in St Louis.
23 12 1928 Australia An industrial court decides that timber workers must increase their weekly working hours from 44 to 48, a decision that sparks a 6 month long strike.
24 12 1903 Belgium Law granting compensation for industrial accidents comes into effect.
24 12 1912 France The CGT holds its extraordinary congress in Paris with a view to organizing a general strike against a possible war. There are 750 delegates representing 1,452 unions.
24 12 1936 Morocco A Dahir or decree recognizes that Europeans have the right to organize unions in order to defend their economic, industrial and commercial interests.
24 12 1960 Belgium In Wallonia, the strike is total, 45,000 demonstrators marched in Charleroi and strike continues to spread in Flanders, in particular in Aalst, Bruges and Ronse.
24 12 1970 Poland In 106 large factories in the country, meetings begin, where the workers decide on the modalities of the distribution of the seven billion zlotys released to end the strike.
24 12 1913 United States of America Seventy three striking miners and their families die in a stampede at the Italian Hall in Calumet, Michigan, after an unknown man enters shouting 'Fire!'
25 12 2007 Poland Miners hold underground Christmas protest over merger, wages.
25 12 1968 India Forty-four Dalits are burnt to death in Kizhavenmani village, Tamil Nadu. Retaliation for a campaign for higher wages by Dalit laborers.
25 12 1831 Jamaica The Great Jamaican Slave Revolt begins; an 11 day rebellion that started involving up to 60,000 of Jamaica's 300,000 slaves following Baptist preacher, Samuel Sharpe. Over 200 slaves lose their lives.
25 12 1904 United States of America Philip Vera Cruz, labour leader & activist in Asian American civil rights movement, is born. Co-founder of United Farm Workers' Union.
25 12 1910 United States of America Bomb destroys part of the Llewellyn Ironworks in Los Angeles where a bitter strike is ongoing.
26 12 1916 France In the midst of the war, Renault's bricklayers began a strike that lasts until January 20, 1917.
26 12 1877 United States of America First national convention of the Socialist Labor Party, the first Marxist party founded in the USA.
26 12 1966 Korea Largest organised strike in South Korean history begins with cat & shipbuilders protesting anti-labour laws. Up to 350,000 on strike.
27 12 2010 Bolivia Bus drivers� strike over 70-80% increases in fuel costs after govt announces end to subsidies.
27 12 1943 United States of America President Roosevelt seizes railroads to avoid a national strike.
27 12 1913 Kenya Makhan Singh was born in India. He was deported to India and imprisoned for his role in the 1939 Mombasa General strike and translated Capital while in gaol. Returned to Kenya in 1947, led another Mombasa general strike, was imprisoned for 11 years.
27 12 1913 Canada Protests by members of the Industrial Workers of the World in Edmonton, Alberta, force the city to provide emergency work and housing for 400 unemployed.
27 12 1892 France The law on conciliation and optional arbitration in disputes between employers and workers comes into force.
27 12 1960 Belgium The general strike reaches its peak, the government is powerless, paralyzed. The leadership of the FGTB refused to launch the general strike order, only the Walloon regional offices and that of Antwerp gave the strike order.
27 12 1974 France An explosion in the coal seam in Saint-Am� pit #3 kills 42 miners in Li�vin. The disaster marks the closure of the site.
27 12 1975 United Kingdom Entry into force of the 1970 law on equal pay for men and women.
27 12 1996 Korea (South) At the call of the KCTU, 220,000 workers from all industrial sectors strike until 30 December against new labor regulations.
28 12 1917 France Banks in Paris are shut as financial services workers strike.
28 12 1936 United States of America Workers occupy General Motors' body plant in Fisher, Cleveland, in an effort to win recognition of their union by GM.
28 12 1960 Belgium Spontaneously, workers in union meetings and street demonstrations themselves set the next goal of the general strike: a march on Brussels and a direct confrontation with the state.
28 12 1973 USA Skylab Mutiny began when one of the crew members killed all communication with NASA's ground control and the men spent the rest of the day relaxing and looking out the window at Earth. Crew said that 16-hr days amounted to being overworked.
28 12 1908 Ireland Delegates, lead by James Larkin, meet to discuss formation of Irish Transport & General Workers Union.
28 12 1973 Finland Trade Union of Education in Finland (Opetusalan Ammattij�rjest�) founded.
29 12 1876 Canada Grand Trunk Railway workers in eastern Ontario go on strike in support of fired co-workers. The four-day strike is broken by the use of scabs and militia.
29 12 2006 United States of America More than 15,000 United Steel Workers members at 16 Goodyear Tire & Rubber plants end an 86-day strike, ratify three-year contract.
29 12 1884 Australia Edward Theodore, founder of Amalgamated Workers� Assn & forerunner of Australian Workers� Union (AWU), is born.
29 12 1975 United Kingdom Sex Discrimination & Equal Pay Acts enacted in England to prevent women being paid less than men for the same job. Over forty years later women still earn, on average, 9% less than men.
29 12 1948 India Hind Mazdoor Sabha (Workers Assembly of India) national trade union centre is founded.
29 12 1958 Canada Television screens on the French-language network go blank in Qu�bec with the start of a strike by producers at Radio-Canada that lasts 70 days. With wide public support in the province, the producers win union recognition.
29 12 1912 Russia Gold miners in Lena, Siberia, go on strike when the canteen serves them rotten meat. The movement grew despite the massacre of 250 strikers and continued until August when the last left the region rather than give in.
29 12 1983 Tunisia �Bread riots�. Bourguiba increases the cost of basic foodstuffs causing riots in particular in Sfax and Tunis. 70 dead.
30 12 1899 United States of America In the back room of Behrens� cigar shop in Sedalia, Missiouri, US, 33 railroad clerks form Local Lodge Number 1 of the Order of the Railroad Clerks of America.
30 12 1862 United Kingdom Manchester textile workers meet and decide to refuse to handle cotton from US slave states. US President Lincoln sends his thanks. Within a year destitute workers and their families receive food and clothing from ex-slaves and abolitionists.
30 12 1936 United States of America The most famous of the Depression-era "sit down" strikes in the US begins at GM's Fisher Body plant in Flint, Michigan.
31 12 1969 United States of America Rank-and-file UMWA activist Jock Yablonski is murdered along with his family by hitmen acting on the orders of union president.
31 12 1958 Canada In Newfoundland, members of the International Woodworkers of America go on strike against the Anglo-Newfoundland Development Company. When Premier Joe Smallwood decertifies the union, the struggle draws international attention.
31 12 1968 Australia John Smith Garden, Australian trade unionist & founding member of Communist Party of Australia, dies.
31 12 2011 Canada In Alma, Quebec, Rio Tinto Alcan locks out members of Local 9490, United Steelworkers, in an attempt to replace all retiring workers with non-union contract employees. This is followed by a successful six-month global solidarity campaign.
4 28 1913 Belgium The Belgian general strike for universal suffrage ends, having won a commitment from the government to change the voting franchise.
31 31 1919 United Kingdom The Collar Laundry Union was formed in New York, the first women's union in US history, led by Kate Mullany. Over the next few years the women increase their wages from $2 to $14 a week.


Total: 1600

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